Dr. Pierson and His Message 



DR. PIERSON AND 
HIS MESSAGE 



a Sfeetcb of tbe %itc anfc 
Worfe of a Great preacber, 
to^etber witb a varieb 
selection from bis . . . . 
nnpubllsbeb Manuscripts . 



EDITED BY 

J. KENNEDY MACLEAN 



ASSOCIATION PRESS 

NEW YORK 
ign 



CONTENTS 



2)r. IMerson: *>is %ifc anfc TRUorft 

Page 

L Early Years and Ministry ..... 3 

II. At the Metropolitan Tabernacle . ... 13 

III. The Work of Later Years 22 

IV. Dr. Pierson's Keswick Ministry . . . 34 - 

V. The Art of Illustration 48 

VI. Characteristics of a Great Life 59 

Br* flMerson : Dte /Message 

Page 

I. The Gospel in Minature 71 

II. Vicarious Dying 85 

III. Love for the Loveless 99 

IV. The Soul's First Quest 112 

V. An Incomparable Pardon 123 

VI. An Impossible Discrimination 137 

VII. The Soul's Mathematics 154 

VIII. The Ethics of Forgiveness 167 

IX. The Sower and the Soil 181 

X. A Wondrous Condescension . . . . , 193 

XI. The Preacher and His Message .... 206 
XII. The Isolated Name ....... 221 

XIII. Christ's Secret of Rest 233 

XIV. The Inevitable Alternative 250 

XV. Expiation and Consecration . . , . 266 



Arthur T. Pierson, D.D. 

A Sketch of His Life 
and Work 



By J. KENNEDY MACLEAN 



I 



Early Years and Ministry 



RTHUR TAPPAN PIERSON was one of God's 



choicest gifts to the Church of Christ during 



A Jl the latter part of the nineteenth century and 
the beginning of the twentieth. He was a preacher 
by nature as well as by training. One would just 
as soon have expected the lark to cease from 
singing its joyous song amid the spacious heights as 
to think that Dr. Pierson could live without preaching. 
Like the ancient prophets who came straight from 
communion with God to declare the words He had 
given them to utter, he stood up with all the majesty of 
the Divine messenger, and, without faltering or apology, 
made known the whole truth as it is contained in the 
revealed Word of God. As we knew him in later years, 
there was something stern and severe in the appearance 
and manner of the tall, lithe figure, but behind the 
seemingly forbidding exterior there beat a heart of pity 
and love for those who were estranged from God and 
whom he was ever seeking to win back to the Father's 
fold. If he was severe in his denunciation of sin, his 
heart bled for the sinner. To him it was an enigma how 
men and women could continue in the path of wrong- 
doing and reject the Saviour's offeree f mercy. 




4 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

It has been said that Dr. Pierson's birth-place was 
curiously suggestive of his career, for it was in a house in 
Chatham-street, New York, built over an arched entrance 
to the chapel where .Chas. G. Finney was preaching, and 
which had been known as the Chatham Street Theatre. 
The year of his birth, 1837, was the same as that of James 
Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, and John Wanamaker, with all 
of whom he was strangely associated in after years. 
Brought up in the centre of Christian surroundings, his 
heart was early inclined towards the Saviour, and he had 
not to pass through long years of agonising doubt and 
sin before finding peace. When a lad in New York, an 
awful scourge of cholera visited the city, and after the 
pestilence had departed, it was remarked by the pastor of 
the church of which he was then a member that, although 
hundreds and thousands within a short distance of the 
church had fallen victims of the awful disease, not one 
solitary church member of all that large communion had 
sickened or died. Such a wonderful occurrence as this 
made a lasting impression on the young and receptive 
mind of the future preacher, and when speaking of it in 
later years he used to say that while God does not assure 
us that any suffering essential to the maturing of the 
spiritual life and education for service would be spared 
us, even though we were His children, He did say to us 
that if we were abiding in Him, such scourges and such 
judgments, as represent the recompense that God 
administers to wicked and rebellious souls, shall not come 
near us, and that we need " not be afraid of the terror by 
night, nor the arrow that flieth by day." 

Deciding in early life to serve God in the holy ministry, 
Dr. Pierson underwent the necessary scholastic prepara- 
tions, and in 1857 graduated from Hamilton College. 
These days of study sowed the seed of that methodical 
habit of thought and practice which ever afterwards 



EARLY YEARS AND MINISTRY 5 



characterised the distinguished preacher. Some men 
cease to study whenever the doors of the University close 
behind them. Dr. Pierson was a diligent student up to 
the very end of his life, and there is no doubt that the 
thorough training of his youthful years laid the founda- 
tions upon which he was subsequently able to build 
enduring monuments of research and industry. 

Possessing a mind upon which impressions were easily 
formed, the young student was influenced by the men with 
whom he was brought into contact and by the circle in 
which he moved. Just as the cholera scourge already 
noted made an ineffaceable mark upon his memory, so did 
some of the incidents of his years at college sink deeply 
into his mind and influence the current of his life. " In 
my college life," he used to recall, " there were two young 
men who were mightily moved by the Spirit of God on 
the same night. They walked down to the chaplain's 
house, intending to go in and converse with him, and then 
in prayer to surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. When 
they got to the gate, one said to the other, ' Jim, I think 
I won't go in,' and he resisted all persuasions, and parted 
at the gate. The man that went in and surrendered to 
Christ that night is one of the mightiest ministers of 
Christ in America to-day. The one that parted with him 
at the gate went into drink, into gambling and sensuality, 
went down to Cuba, and was identified there with some 
rebellion, where he was shot, and died in the midst of his 
sins. They parted for eternity at the gateway of the 
chaplain's house, and each man's future depended on the 
decision made at that moment." 

In i860 Dr. Pierson was ordained in the Thirteenth- 
street Presbyterian Church, New York City, and in the 
same year he was married. Thus last year (19 10) were 
celebrated both the jubilee of his ministry and his golden 
wedding — a double event that brought to Dr. and Mrs. 



6 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



Pierson many heart-felt congratulations from friends all 
over the world. 

Dr. Pierson's first pastorate was at Binghamton, and 
ministeries at Waterford ; Fort Street Church, Detroit ; 
Second Church, Indianapolis, and the Bethany Church, 
Philadelphia, followed. To that anecdotal style of 
preaching, which is such a characteristic of our American 
brethren, we are indebted for many glimpses into the 
experiences of those early days of service in the Master's 
cause. 

" I began my ministry with the confident impression 
that the Church is destined to convert the world in this 
age," Dr. Pierson has confessed. " I endeavoured to do 
my part in this work of world transformation, and I 
preached with all enthusiasm, ardour, and conviction, 
expecting to see my whole congregation converted. It 
was not ; here and there one was gathered out, and so it 
has continued all through the years of my ministry. I 
have rejoiced in seeing God's Spirit working, and 
converting many souls under my preaching, but I have 
never yet seen a whole congregation brought to Christ, 
and if any of my brethren have it must be a very excep- 
tional case. Who would not be glad to take a pilgrimage 
to see a field where every hearer is also a believer, or a 
whole community has been transformed into a true 
church ? " 

There is, perhaps, just a note of disappointment in this 
confession, but that is pardonable when we remember the 
enthusiasm that fills the soul of the young preacher with 
high ideas, and whose heart is so much on fire with holy 
passion that he cannot understand how anyone can 
possibly turn a deaf ear to the glorious invitation of the 
Gospel. 

This was not the only direction, however, in which the 
icy chill of disappointment fell upon the warmth of 



EARLY YEARS AND MINISTRY 



passionate zeal. In one of the congregations to which he 
ministered he was continually beset by opposition from 
some who claimed to be children of God, led on by 
worldly-minded men outside the church membership 
entirely. Of this experience Dr. Pierson could never 
speak without a sense of awe, for Divine chastisements 
were visited upon that band of opposers, and the lesson 
which Dr. Pierson learned from that trial was this, " It 
showed me the sacredness of the office of a Christian 
minister, and how we need not defend ourselves, but 
commit our defence unto the Lord God Almighty." 

Another remarkable illustration of how, when we 
cultivate spiritual insight and spiritual instinct, we can 
depend upon God to interpose for us, is given as follows 
in Dr. Pierson's own striking words : — 

I was once in a church where there was a deadly 
feud between certain members and officers, and it was so 
bitter that the opposing parties would not even sit on the 
same side in the prayer-meeting room. After eighteen 
months of strenuous endeavours to heal the sore and get 
the contention out of the way, I said to the Lord, ' Thou 
hast put me here, and Thou art bound by Thy promise 
to stand by me. Now I have sought to remedy this 
difficulty, and I cannot, and I find this conflict facing 
me every way, and these antagonists have arrayed them- 
selves against each other like hostile forces ; now, Lord, 
either heal the breach, or remove out of the way the real 
offenders.' And from the day that I offered that prayer not 
one of those offenders ever darkened that church door. I speak 
of it in solemnity. I feel very solemn about it, but I 
want the witness to go to your hearts that the mighty 
God is on the side of any man who seeks to be filled 
with the Holy Ghost, to cultivate the insight into the 
Word, and the instincts of a spiritual man, and so to 
administer everything in the interests of God." 



8 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



Of a different character was the following experience : 
— " In my own life I was long inclined, from a training in 
business methods, and an undue confidence in my own 
sagacity, to undertake to manage matters myself. I 
learnt a better way ; and from that time have found no 
difficulty confronting me in my ministry for which there 
has not been found a Divine solution. I took charge of a 
church at one time, which was composed, for the most 
part, of the poorer and working classes, which had a 
terrible debt of £10,000 resting upon it. Feeling such a 
debt to be a reproach to Christ, I undertook, in the name 
of God, to raise it by voluntary offerings. It seemed to 
human eyes a hopeless task ; but, by the grace of God, it 
was accomplished inside of three years without friction, 
without disturbance, without oppressive taxation." 

From this Dr. Pierson used to commend to his brethren 
in the ministry that, in each Church of Jesus Christ, the 
minister should seek to associate with himself the most 
godly, devout, and holy men and women, in united prayer 
for great spiritual blessings ; that one of their number 
should be appointed a secretary, and that every subject 
deferentially presented before God in united prayer should 
be recorded, with the promise upon which the request was 
based, and the date when such prayer began to be made. 
Then, so fast as the petitions were granted, the answers 
should be with equal fidelity recorded, so that this Prayer 
Union (which might be a very small circle) within the 
Church of Christ, should demonstrate for mutual growth 
in faith and courage in waiting upon God how faithful 
God is in hearing and answering the prayers of His 
people. 

Prayer with him was not a mere repetition of empty 
words, but the lifting up of the whole heart to God — the 
presenting of every need, not in the vain hope of its being 
heard, but in the fullest confidence of its being answe red. 



EARLY YEARS AND MINISTRY g 



Like his dear friend, George Miiller, in whose work he 
was so deeply interested, and whose life of faith he so 
beautifully portrayed in his biography of the orphans' 
friend, he had learned to lean upon God, and he knew 
that all the treasures of the Father's storehouse were at 
his disposal. Such an attitude as that laughs at " impos- 
sibilities," for with God human extremity is but the 
opportunity for Divine aid and deliverance. 

From what has already been said, it is obvious that 
Dr. Pierson was conscientious in discharging all the 
duties of the ministry, and that in him the business and 
the spiritual elements were beautifully and successfully 
blended. He never was, as some men profess to be, so 
deeply engrossed in heavenly matters as to be oblivious to 
the claims of earth ; with him the two were inseparably 
related, and while he laboured in a power not his own, 
and sought the guidance of the Spirit in every detail, he 
was wise enough to understand that human preparation 
and organisation have a place in the economy of God's 
work, and that to neglect them is an evidence not of 
intense spirituality but of laziness and indifference. 

For example, Dr. Pierson believed and said that a great 
lack in our church life is that of complete organisation. 
" We knew well a prominent pastor in one of the Western 
cities who was perpetually urging his people to engage in 
beneficent activities, but who was so utterly deficient in 
devising and dividing labour that, when approached after 
his own discourses by those who were ready to engage in 
work for Christ, he was absolutely unable to direct them 
in what way to bestow their activities. Fortunately the 
economy of all well-organised churches does not leave the 
pastor to do this work of organisation alone. He has his 
eldership, or his board of deacons, or his committee men, 
to assist him in the forming and perfecting of this 
mechanism of church activity, and he should associate 



io ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



with himself the largest number of wise, sagacious, active 
men and women in the congregation as the pastor's 
working council. They should with him develop modes 
of activity, and apportion work to every man, woman, and 
child willing to engage in it. I have found it of great 
personal value to me, in the pastorate of American 
churches, to unite the trustees, elders, and deacons in such 
a pastor's council, and with them to mature the methods 
of work to be recommended to the congregation for their 
adoption. Such a plan has a higher value in this, that 
each member of such a board of councillors represents a 
coterie of personal friends and acquaintances in the con- 
gregation, over whom he has more or less influence, and 
whom he can induce personally to take part in the 
organised work of the congregation." 

This attention to detail and this regard for the proper 
working of the machinery associated with church life and 
work, were marks of that well-ordered mind that believed 
in doing everything as perfectly as possible. In his plan 
there was no room for the sloth, no place for the dilet- 
tante ; the labourers in the great vineyard must have zeal 
for service and be whole-hearted in their devotion. And 
what he expected from others in exactitude and merit of 
service, he gladly rendered himself. Dr. Pierson was 
thorough in method. He made rules for himself before 
he had been very long in the ministry, and he obeyed 
them with unflinching faithfulness. He worked on a 
system. He prepared for emergencies. At the beginning 
of his ministerial life, foreseeing that demands would be 
frequently made upon him for public lectures and 
addresses, on general occasions, he framed several dis- 
courses on popular and useful themes, and was accustomed 
to use them from time to time, making such changes in 
the elaboration of the various departments and illustra- 
tions of thought as his own mental growth and increasing 



EARLY YEARS AND MINISTRY n 



intelligence or the surrounding circumstances might 
allow ; and he found these to be exceedingly useful to 
him, being oftentimes called upon with very little or no 
notice. These lay in the mind and memory as the general 
foundation for addresses for which no special preparation 
could be made, and prevented his ever appearing before 
an audience without being able to present a definite 
message. 

It was this same regard for careful method and pre- 
cision that accustomed him, during the later years of his 
pastorate, to carry about with him a book for permanent 
record, in which he put down, in cipher, all the facts 
which affected the personal and family life of his congre- 
gation, which he was able in any way to ascertain. For 
instance, he would inquire where the members of each 
family were born ; whether there were any special 
besetting sins in the children, known to the parents ; 
whether any children had been specially consecrated to 
God from birth, etc. He would inquire and record about 
those who had died in the family circle ; their ages and 
circumstances ; and about members of the family living 
in other parts ; about aged grandparents and their 
infirmities ; about members of the household who 
belonged to other churches and communions; about those 
who had any physical infirmities or deformities — in a 
word, ascertain, as far as he could, facts of the family 
history. This enabled him to pray intelligently for his 
people ; and before he repeated a call, he would look over 
his memoranda, so as to be enabled to converse intelli- 
gently and sympathetically; and he found that this 
method of getting at the inmost history of his people was 
an invaluable source of power to him in reaching their 
souls. 

There we have a glimpse of the ardent soul- winner who 
did not regard his pulpit ministrations as the only way of 



12 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



reaching the hearts and consciences of the people, but 
who made use of every means in his power to come into 
the closest personal contact with all whom he desired to 
influence. His was a high sense of duty and of respon- 
sibility, and nobly did he fulfil every function of his holy 
office. 



II 



At the Metropolitan Tabernacle 



HE combination of circumstances associated with 



Dr. Pierson's ministry at the Metropolitan 



JL Tabernacle in London leaves no doubt whatever 
that he occupied the pulpit by Divine appointment. It 
was no easy task to step into the breach occasioned by 
the illness, and subsequently by the death, of that prince 
of preachers, Mr. C. H. Spurgeon, but the man who is 
commissioned to undertake a duty forgets himself in the 
discharge of his task. 

So it was with Dr. Pierson. There was no pulpit in all 
the world so renowned as that from which Mr. Spurgeon 
week after week and year after year delivered the 
wonderful sermons that found their way literally by the 
million into every quarter of the globe, and to step into 
the fierce light that beat upon the Tabernacle and all its 
affairs was an ordeal from which almost any man would 
have shrunk. But Dr. Pierson, looking away from himself 
and only at the Master whom he served, shouldered the 
responsibilities of the Tabernacle ministry, and marched 
forward in full dependence upon the Spirit of God. 

He was not entirely a stranger to the congregation 
when, towards the close of 1891, he began his temporary 




13 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



ministry in London. Two years earlier he had preached 
at the Tabernacle, and the impression made upon his 
mind on the occasion of that last visit is reflected in the 
article which appeared shortly afterwards in the pages of 
his own magazine, "The Missionary Review of the 
World." 

" This Metropolitan Tabernacle is a house of prayer 
most emphatically," Dr. Pierson writes. " Here are 
numerous rooms, under and around the great audience- 
room, where for almost forty years this one servant of 
God has held forth the Word of Life ; and in these rooms 
prayer is almost ceaselessly going up. When one meet- 
ing is not in progress, another is. This is a hive of bees, 
where there are comparatively few drones. There are 
prayer meetings before preaching, and others after 
preaching ; Evangelistic Associations, Zenana Societies, 
and all sorts of work for God find here a centre, and all 
are consecrated by prayer. Before the preacher goes 
upon the platform to address these thousands, the officers 
of this great church meet him and each other for prayer 
as to the service ; and one feels upborne on these strong 
arms of prayer while preaching. No marvel that Mr. 
Spurgeon's ministry has been so blessed. He himself 
attributes it mainly to the prevailing prayers of his people. 
Why may not the whole Church of God learn something 
from the Metropolitan Tabernacle of London as to the 
power of simple Gospel preaching backed by believing 
supplication ? 

" Referring to this great church, one cannot forget also 
this divine mission as a standing protest against the 
secularising of the house of God by the attractions of 
worldly art and sestheticism. Here is nothing to divert 
the mind from the simplicity of worship and the Gospel ; 
no attempt at elaborate architecture, furniture, garniture. 
A precentor leads congregational song without even the 



AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE 15 



help of a cornet ; prayer and praise, and the reading of 
the Word of God, with plain putting of Gospel truth — 
these have been Mr. Spurgeon's lifelong ' means of grace ' 
and weapons of war. 

" This lesson has, in my opinion, a bearing on all work 
for Christ, at home and abroad. Our reliance is too 
much on the charms of this world, in drawing souls to the 
Gospel and to the Saviour. The Holy Spirit will not 
tolerate our idols. If we will have artistic and secular 
types of music, substituting unsanctifled art for simple 
praise ; if we will have elaborate ritual in place of simple, 
believing prayer, if we will have eloquent lectures in place 
of simple, earnest Gospel preaching, we must not wonder if 
no shekinah fires burn in our sanctuaries. If Ahaz is allowed 
to displace God's plain altar by the carved, idolatrous 
altar from Damascus, we need not be surprised if God 
withdraws His power. Perhaps the reason why the work 
of God abroad shows more sign of His presence and 
power than our sanctuary services at home is in part this, 
that our foreign mission work has never been embarrassed 
as yet by those elaborate attempts at sesthetic attractions 
which turn many of our home churches into concert-halls 
and lecture-saloons, and costly club-houses. May God 
grant us to learn, once for all, that nothing in our mission 
work can make up for Holy Spirit power, and that Holy 
Spirit power itself makes up for the lack of all else. If 
the angel troubles the pool, there is healing in the waters ; 
but if God's angel comes not down, all the doctors in 
Jerusalem, with all the drugs in creation, cannot impart 
healing virtue." 

In 1891 Mr. Spurgeon was laid aside by illness, the 
heavy duties at the Tabernacle overcoming at last his 
physical strength, and necessitating a respite from the 
strain of his busy ministry. Ordered abroad by his 
medical advisers, he was naturally anxious that his 



16 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D, 



congregation should not suffer by his absence, and the 
problem of a capable substitute was much in his thoughts. 
Early in the month of August he remembered that Dr. 
Pierson had kindly offered to come to London at any 
time when his services might be required, and writing to 
his friend he inquired whether his engagements would 
permit of his coming to England. The very next morn- 
ing, to show how the hand of the Lord was working in 
the matter, a loving letter was received from Dr. Pierson 
in which, among other helpful words, were the following : 
" If by coming across the sea I could now serve you, I 
would cheerfully do all in my power." To this a reply 
was at once sent, and the return mail brought the follow- 
ing confirmation of the belief that the proposal was of the 
Lord : — 

" My beloved in the Lord, dearest Spurgeon, — Your 
most loving letter of August 7th has just reached me, 
forwarded from my city address. Please do not ' Reverend ' 
or ' Doctor ' me ! I am not as reverend as you are, for I 
am only fifty-four, and you are a little more venerable ; 
and, as to the doctoring, you unhappily need it more 
than I. Now, henceforth let me be plain Pastor Pierson ! 

" As to the contents of your letter, I fell on my 
knees — there was in all this a touch of the supernatural, 
and I was overawed. 

" First of all, I was unexpectedly called to preach in 
the Tabernacle, Dec. 6, 1889 ; and never had I felt such 
divine uplifting; the atmosphere of prayer and of the 
Holy Ghost was there, and those blessed men of prayer 
all about me, and the conscious demand of the congrega- 
tion for the plain Word of God, with no chaff of science 
and art and human wisdom, falsely so-called ; I felt that 
such a congregation and environment evoked the best 
there was in me, and that such eloquent hearing would 
make any man mighty to preach. And so it pained me 



AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE 17 



to be unable to comply with after-appeals by letter and 
telegram asking me to preach again, for I felt that 
nowhere on earth would I so gladly hold forth the Word 
of Life. And then my deep love for Pastor Spurgeon, 
nourished through many years, and increasing day by 
day, led me to feel it a divine joy to do anything to help 
you, for no man on earth has ever had more of my love 
and sympathy than you. Every utterance of tongue or 
pen has an echo in my heart, and especially in this 
Greatest Fight in the World. 

" Well, now — listen ; for the first time, I think, since I 
began to preach at twenty years of age, I am entirely free 
of all positive engagements from October 1st ; my last 
appointment to preach, thus far, is September 27. By 
some strange leading I have been made to keep clear of 
all embarrassing promises and pledges ; and though it will 
upset all my supposed and presumed course, I cannot 
offer at present any insuperable barrier to my coming and 
preaching for you, from about the middle of October, 
indefinitely. I know not what I may be able to cable 
you, for I feel that I must write fully on a subject so 
grave. It is of supreme consequence for me only to do the 
will of God, and that can be known only in answer to 
believing prayer. My counsel is, that you call your 
deacons together, and, after earnest prayer, ascertain by 
their unanimous voice what is the divine mind. I am 
making this matter one of fasting and prayer ; and if your 
mind, and theirs, and my own, are led in the same direc- 
tion, I will accept it as a token of God's will, and come 
with joy to you. 

" My hesitation is due, not so much to the necessary 
doubt investing such a manifest interruption of my 
ordinary work, which, like other men's, runs in the 
ruts of habit ; but I cannot but hesitate for clear signs 
of the divine will, before daring to take up a work so 

c 



i8 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

vast, and of issues possibly so momentous. To enter such 
a field, and there labour at this critical time, when the 
whole people have been chastened, and the soil is mellow 
and ready for the sowing, — I simply dare not, unless I am 
thrust into it and anointed anew for the work by the 
Master Himself." 

Three days after writing the above, Dr. Pierson 
cabled : — Acts xvi. 9, 10. The passage runs thus — 
" And a vision appeared to Paul in the night : There 
stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come 
over into Macedonia, and help us. And after he had 
seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into 
Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called 
us for to preach the Gospel unto them." 

In due course, the deacons met, and unanimously agreed 
to the proposal ; it was afterwards approved by the elders ; 
and on final details being arranged, October 25th was 
fixed as the date of Dr. Pierson's first services at the 
Tabernacle. " We trust " — said the official organ of the 
Tabernacle at the time — " that his coming will indeed be 
like Paul's mission to Macedonia, and that not only will 
believers be edified and strengthened, but that many 
under his ministry may be brought out of darkness into 
light." 

Believing that blessing received is in proportion to the 
faith expecting it, Dr. Pierson entered upon his work in 
London with every confidence of a harvest season. To 
this belief he gave utterance in some of the first words 
spoken by him from the Tabernacle pulpit. " Do you 
expect a blessing ? " he asked. " Then you will prepare 
your heart for it. May I say that I expect a blessing ? 
I never would have come those three thousand miles 
across the stormy Atlantic, and have left all the work in 
America that was at my hands, to preach in this Taber- 
nacle, had I not been confident that God called me, and 



AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE ig 



meant, through this poor ministry of mine, to second the 
glorious testimony of Pastor Spurgeon, and that I should 
come to a prepared people. And I want solemnly to say 
that, if we do not have a blessing, it will be our own 
fault ; for God is great and rich in mercy, and the Holy 
Ghost is even now hovering over this assembly like a dove 
at a window ; and if we will open the window the Holy 
Dove will come in." 

This expectation was realised from the very beginning. 
Mr. Spurgeon, before his departure for Mentone, had 
spoken of the rest of heart which he enjoyed in leaving 
Tabernacle affairs in the hands of " our beloved brother, 
Dr. Pierson," adding those significant words : — " It was 
according to the wonder-working way of God to have 
such a man in reserve while we were laid aside. No one 
could be more competent, or more suitable ; no one could 
display a more unselfish desire to serve the cause of God, 
or a more loving concern to help a brother in his hour of 
need. It is marvellous how greatly we coincide in 
thought and feeling : the two ministries have dovetailed 
into each other, and we are indeed one." And so the 
ministry, begun amid such mutual love and confidence, and 
in an atmosphere warm with prayer, was wonderfully 
marked by the Divine favour. In undiminished crowds the 
people flocked to the house of God, and the joy of reaping 
gladdened the heart of the preacher from over the sea. 

Meantime, while every department of the Tabernacle 
was maintaining its activities under the guiding hand of 
Dr. Pierson, the beloved pastor was resting by the sunny 
shore of the Mediterranean, gradually gaining strength 
and, as far as human eye could see, getting ready for a 
resumption of his labours in the centre of London's teem- 
ing millions. He hoped to be " home in February." And 
he was, in a much more real sense than was supposed by 
any of those who heard the words, for with the coming of 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



that month there flashed across the world the sad intelli- 
gence that, on January 31st, 1892, C. H. Spurgeon had 
gone to his reward. 

Throughout the dark and trying days that followed, 
Dr. Pierson stood like a giant, strong in faith, and 
preaching the steadying and inspiring messages that were 
needed in the hours of crisis. " During the life of the 
great pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle," one of the 
officials has said to me, " there were many who were 
filled with apprehension as to what would happen after 
his decease, for his master had guided and controlled, not 
only the great Church, but the important institutions 
connected with it, and when he was called to his rest, the 
Church was staggered and bewildered by the calamity. 
Loyally and faithfully, Dr. Pierson stepped into the breach 
and gave himself unreservedly in the service of the 
Church; throughout the ordeal of the funeral and 
memorial services, without faltering, he maintained the 
great work, until time began to heal the sense of bereave- 
ment and distraction, and thus he guided the great ship 
into smoother water." 

The memory of Dr. Pierson's faith, courage, and heal- 
ing ministry during that period of sorrow and bereave- 
ment is still gratefully cherished at the Tabernacle. If, 
after the congregation worshipping there began to 
accustom itself to its altered circumstances, there were 
some who forgot their debt to him, and attributed 
unworthy motives to disinterested service, it was but a 
modern illustration of the experience of the "poor wise 
man " recorded in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Into the 
unhappy episodes I need not enter, but I have it on the 
authority of one well acquainted with all the circum- 
stances, that Dr. Pierson made "efforts to restore 
harmony to an extent that many might consider deroga- 
tory in his fervent desire that the cause of Christ might 



AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE 21, 



not suffer disrepute by real or imaginary disunion within 
its borders." 

At the Tabernacle and elsewhere there were many who 
would have liked to see Dr. Pierson succeed Mr. Spurgeon 
in the permanent pastorate of the Church, but that was 
not God's purpose for His servant. And so, the mission 
which had brought him to London having been fulfilled, 
he resumed other duties, with twenty years of glorious 
service still ahead. 



Ill 



The Work of Later Years 

THOUGH Dr. Pierson occupied no settled pastorate 
during the closing twenty years of his life, his 
ministry was world-wide in its scope, in large 
measure through his books, and he left his impress on many 
departments of religious work. In no field, perhaps, did 
he labour with deeper earnestness than in that of foreign 
missions. The tremendous need of the mission field ever 
loomed up before him with pathetic appeal ; he saw vast 
areas of the world's surface untouched by the saving 
presence of the missionary, and his heart yearned with a 
passionate earnestness to send the Gospel to the great 
multitudes who sat in the gloomy darkness of heathenism. 
Voice and pen were devoted to furthering the interests of 
the cause of Christ in foreign lands, and not only did he 
seek to awaken the interest in the Church, but he gave 
that which is often hardest to give, his own children to 
missionary labours, one of them dying at her post in 
India, another sacrificing his health in the tropics of 
Central America ; a third has laboured among the Indians 
in the South-west of America ; a fourth assists her 
husband in Christian settlement work in one of the large 
cities in the United States, while the eldest son was 
associated with his father in the conduct of his missionary 
magazine. 

22 



THE WORK OF LATER YEARS 



This intense interest in the cause of missions was not 
a plant of late growth. For twenty-five years he was 
editor of The Missionary Review oj the World, and one of 
his own countrymen has declared that " it is generally 
conceded that there is no living writer on Christian 
missions the equal of Dr. Arthur T. Pierson, in fulness 
of knowledge, in enthusiasm and earnestness of spirit, 
and in charm and power of treatment." Before he left 
America in 1891, to enter upon the temporary pastorate 
of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, he prepared 
a " Solemn League and Covenant " in order to create a 
fresh concern in the cause of missions and to lead to a 
practical support of them. 

That " League and Covenant " was in the following 
practical terms : — 

" Who of God's people are ready to join in an agree- 
ment of prayer to carry out some such solemn confession 
of duty, faith, and privilege as the following ? 

" We, the undersigned, deeply feeling the reproach and 
dishonour of the Church of Christ in the long neglect of 
the perishing millions of our race, and the selfish hoarding 
and spending of money which has been committed to 
disciples as stewards ; and painfully conscious that 
unbelief has led to the still worse neglect of believing 
prayer in behalf of a world's evangelisation, do, in the 
name of Jesus, declare our deep conviction that it is the 
duty and privilege of the disciples of Christ to bear the 
Gospel message to the whole race of man with all 
possible promptness ; that every believer is responsible 
before God for the carrying out of our Lord's last 
command ; that the avenues of self-indulgence should be 
closed, that we may have the more to give to those that 
need ; that we ourselves should be ready to go wherever 
we are sent, and to send others where we may not go ; 
that our children should be consecrated, from the first, 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



unto God's service, and encouraged to cherish the spirit 
of missions. And we are especially impressed that daily 
and believing prayer should be offered for the speedy 
evangelisation of this world and the coming of the 
kingdom of God. We believe it is the privilege of all 
true believers to implore God for the speedy outpourings 
of His Spirit in a world-wide Pentecost of power. 

" And in this faith we do solemnly undertake, in holy 
agreement before God, however widely separated from 
each other, to meet each other at the throne of grace in 
the early morning hours of each day in earnest and 
importunate prayer." 

Again and again he uttered warnings to the Church of 
Christ, pointing out its duty with regard to missionary 
work in foreign parts, and no one could listen to his 
clarion calls without realising how real was the passion 
that stirred his soul. As recently as August last, igio, 
in spite of the weakness that was then leaving its mark 
upon the faithful servant, he spoke at the Northfield 
Conference on " The Incredible Facts of Modern 
Missions," emphasising in that address the fact that God 
is working a great work in our day and calling upon 
Christian men and women to recognise His working and 
rise to their responsibility. 

" If," he added, " the Church fails Him in these days, 
He will cast it aside and raise up another people to do 
His will, as He did with the Israelites at Kadesh-Barnea, 
that was so near the land of promise that it is not quite 
certain whether it was inside the border. In a few hours 
they could have entered and taken possession; but 
because they were afraid to face the giant sons of Anak, 
and were so unbelieving and hard-hearted that they were 
even going to stone Caleb for encouraging them to go 
forward, God turned them back into the desert for 
thirty-nine years, till they all left their carcases in the 



THE WORK OF LATER YEARS 25 



wilderness. If the Church of God in this generation 
does not arise to the work of the world's evangelisation, 
He will cast us aside and raise up another generation to 
do His will." 

Then he closed with this appeal, showing how even to 
the last he was striving to awaken the individual and the 
Church to a real sense of their responsibility to the 
unevangelised world : — 

" Thousands and millions of people have not yet seen 
a missionary nor heard the first proclamation of the 
Gospel. This assembly room has in it as many as equal 
one-eighth of the missionary forces in the world that the 
Christian Church sends unto heathen and papal countries. 
We do not know what consecration is or what giving is. 
I want to see the day when people beget and bear and 
rear children for the mission field ; when they restrict 
their expenses for the sake of having more to give ; when 
believers limit their indulgences, forego fine houses, 
collections of art and of books, and all forms of needless 
outlay for temporal things for the sake of the spiritual 
welfare of a lost race. I beseech you, take this matter 
into new consideration before Almighty God, and do not 
sleep until you have communed with the Wonder Worker 
of our day, and have solemnly asked Him, * Lord, what 
wilt Thou have me to do ? ' " 

With such a fire as this glowing perpetually in his 
breast, one can readily understand how eagerly he 
welcomed the awakening of college students to the cause 
of foreign missions in 1886, when the Student Volunteer 
Movement was founded at Mount Hermon. Much of 
the inspiration of this movement was derived from Dr. 
Pierson himself, who was in attendance upon the con- 
ference at Northfield, and was associated with the small 
group of men, including Robert Wilder and John Forman, 
who inaugurated the world-wide enterprise. During the 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



earlier years of the movement Dr. Pierson was present 
and took part in nearly all their leading conferences both 
in this country and in America. 

No review of Dr. Pierson's life, however lengthy, could 
do anything like justice to his labours on behalf of 
missions, but it is worth recalling the fact that in 1888, 
at the great London Missionary Conference, he delivered 
a memorable address, giving a general survey of modern 
missions, in the course of which he pressed home the 
thought that in connection with this enterprise the 
greatest need was the need of a revival of faith in the 
supernatural. In the month of July that same year, in 
association with his fellow-countryman, the late Dr. A. 
J. Gordon, of Boston, he addressed a series of meetings in 
Edinburgh; and this was followed by a campaign in 
which these two honoured brethren visited quite a number 
of centres in Scotland, speaking everywhere on missions 
with much acceptance. 

With another branch of Christian activity in this 
country Dr. Pierson was intimately associated — the 
Muller Orphanage at Bristol. His association with that 
wonderful man of God began during one of Mr. Miiller's 
preaching tours in the United States, Dr. Pierson at that 
time being minister at a church in Philadelphia. Close 
and prolonged seasons of prayer and Bible reading which 
they had together bound them to one another in affec- 
tionate relationships, and the ties then formed were only 
broken when, in 1898, Mr. Muller was called to his 
reward. Dr. Pierson was a frequent visitor at the Bristol 
Homes, and in the two biographies, " George Muller, of 
Bristol," and " James Wright, of Bristol," he paid tribute 
to the devoted services of those two men of God on 
behalf of the homeless and the destitute orphans. 

AH who had the privilege of being acquainted with Dr. 
Pierson in his home life speak of the beautiful devotion 



THE WORK OF LATER YEARS 27 



of husband to wife and of wife to husband. Joined 
together in marriage in i860, they enjoyed half a century 
of unbroken happiness, the growing years but drawing 
them into closer unity of heart and spirit and rendering 
their married life the perfect ideal of what all true 
marriage should be. Last summer they celebrated their 
golden wedding — celebrated it quietly and happily at 
beautiful Northfield, redolent with memories of D. L. 
Moody and the centre to-day of Bible conferences and 
schools that have made, and are making, their mark upon 
the religious life and thought of the world. The Rev. J. 
Stuart Holden was privileged to join with Mr. and Mrs. 
W. R. Moody in an otherwise almost entirely family 
gathering, and he says that never shall he forget the 
happiness of that summer afternoon. " With sparkling 
wit, striking epigram, and interesting reminiscence, the 
Doctor entertained and amused us all, and his tender 
and almost patriarchal greeting and blessing of his guests 
was like a benediction." 

To the "beloved friends, everywhere," of Mrs. Pierson 
and himself there was sent " with grateful affection," a 
little souvenir of the happy event, couched in the following 
terms : — 

" Our Golden Jubilee was quietly kept with the family 
circle at * Heerrnhut,' our Northfield summer home. 

"We had issued no announcements or invitations, 
wishing to avoid all publicity, for obvious reasons ; but, 
notwithstanding, we were the recipients of not a few 
generous gifts, and very many precious messages of love 
and salutation, by letter or telegram. Feeling unequal 
to the individual acknowledgement of all these acts of 
kindness, we ask our friends to accept this simple 
memorial of the occasion, and response to their con- 
gratulations as a personal tribute, with thanks for their 
gracious ministries of many years, and fervent prayers for 



28 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

their joyful gathering with us and all the Church of God 
at the Marriage Supper of the King. 
^Upofthe inside'pages of this memorial were repro- 
duced portraits of Dr. and Mrs. Pierson at the tun of 
their wedding, together with portraits taken just before 
heir jubilee, and also the following lines in verse giving 
their testimony to the Lord's goodness during the half 
century they had been together in the sacred relationship 
of husband and wife : — 

With fifty years of wedded Love and Life 
Our Father God has crowned us— Husband, Wife— 
With two sons and five daughters Home was blest, 
One only-dear " Louise "—yet called to rest, 
For all these golden years, and sunlit ways, 
We ask our friends to join our hymn of praise ; 
No gifts we crave so much as priceless Love, 
And prayers in our behalf to God above ; 
That, if awhile His grace prolongs our stay 
His pillar may direct our pilgrim way. 
Then bid us welcome to His Home on high, 
Where Love is throned and Joy can never die. 
Blessed indeed, from Sin and Death made free 
In Heaven to keep the Golden Jubilee ! 

The fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Pierson's ordination to 
the ministry falling in the same year, it occurred to some 
of his friends that it was a fitting time to undertake some 
form of a memorial to him, and it was proposed that a 
Missionary Bible Lectureship should be founded. The 
occasion seemed appropriate also for making a missionary 
tour that had long been in contemplation, and in Dr. 
Pierson's own magazine the following details were 
given : — 

" After receiving many pressing invitations to visit the 
Orient, and bear testimony to the truth, the Editor-in- 
chief has now made plans for a trip to the mission fields 
of Asia, returning by Egypt and the Mediterranean. 



THE WORK OF LATER YEARS 29 



He expects to sail from Vancouver on October 19th on 
the Empress of Japan, and plans to reach London in time 
for the Keswick Convention in July, 1911. The itinerary, 
so far as complete, embraces Japan, Korea, China, Siam, 
India, Burma, and Ceylon, and probably Egypt. 
Arrangements are being made for services with the 
missionaries and English-speaking Christians in India 
during January and February, 1911. The editor will also 
be ready, as far as is desired and possible, to meet with 
missionaries in other lands. He expects to be in Japan 
and Korea in November ; in Manchuria and China in 
December ; in Siam, Burma, and then India, from about 
January 1st to March 1st, and in Egypt from March 15th 
to April 15th, approximately. 

" The purpose of this tour is to accomplish several 
ends : First, to glean information at first hand about the 
actual state and needs of the mission fields ; second, to 
encourage and stimulate the missionaries and native 
churches ; third, to strengthen faith in the inspired 
Word of God and loyalty to our divine Redeemer ; and, 
finally, in every way to build up the cause of Bible study 
and missionary enterprise." 

The tour began according to arrangement, but it was 
not to end as planned. The voyage, to begin with, was 
exceedingly rough, and in his weak state of health Dr. 
Pierson suffered severely in consequence. Mr. Ralph 
Walker, who sailed from British Columbia with Dr. 
Pierson and his wife and daughter, tells me that even 
before the voyage began he was much impressed by his 
friend's weakness and frailty, and thought him totally 
unfit to endure the fatigues and inconveniences of Eastern 
life. At first he maintained his strength, but as they got 
into a colder climate and the sea grew rough, he became 
utterly prostrate, and twice on going to his cabin Mr. 
Walker found him so prostrate that he was not sure 



3 o ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

whether he was alive or not. But when one day's com- 
parative calm and sunshine broke the weariness of the 
storm, it brought with it new life and hope, and Dr. 
Pierson walked the deck with his friend till the latter was 

quite tired out. 

Again and again, Dr. Pierson's splendid spirit over- 
came his bodily weakness, and when he reached Japan 
his courage and zeal often led him to speak to the 
students and others with a power which he ever 
exercised in his witness for the Master. But in Korea he 
found the conditions far from favourable, the intense cold, 
combined with the lack of heating arrangements in the 
houses, causing him much suffering and adding to the 
weakness which became more marked as the days went 
by. And yet, his letters to his friends in this country 
were for a time bright and hopeful. He expected to reach 
London about the month of April and offered to occupy 
once more the pulpit at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, 
should the Church still be without a pastor. 

Later letters, however, gave rise to much anxiety 
amongst his friends. When last in England, two years 
earlier, Dr. Pierson had seemed considerably weaker than 
usual. Up till then his years had sat lightly upon him, 
but at the Keswick Convention of 1909 he appeared to be 
tired and worn out ; and as the news of his illness reached 
us from Korea there stole into many hearts the fear, justi- 
fied by events, that never again would we see the loved 
form or listen to the voice that had so often in years gone 
by thrilled and inspired us with its message. 

Writing to the Rev. Evan H. Hopkins towards the end 
of the year, and addressing him as " My Beloved Friend 
and Brother," he said, " You will see from this letter that 
I am about as far from my home as I can ever be on 
earth. As soon as my health is sufficiently restored, after 
a very tempestuous sea voyage, I expect to press on to 



THE WORK OF LATER YEARS 31 



Shanghai and thence to Calcutta and so on, to London, 
where, if God spares my life, I hope to meet you about 
April 1st and have much to say to you when we meet, 
which I cannot take time for now and have no strength 

to write or even to dictate My heart goes 

out to you in special affection. There is no man in Great 
Britain whom I more long to see, and with whom I 
should consider it a greater privilege just now to have 
fellowship and conversation. If I am spared to again see 
you, I have countless matters of which to speak. After 
writing for forty years upon the subject of missions, and 
delivering countless addresses and reading almost count- 
less books, I have had more impression made upon my 
mind by a few weeks in Japan and Korea than all the 
previous years have made, so great is the power of vision 

to produce impression 

" I have heard nothing up to this time about the 

* Pierson Lectureship ' which was proposed in connection 
with my Jubilee ; whether the amount was raised and the 
project realised I do not know ; but in any case, I am try- 
ing to act as the first incumbent of the Lectureship, and 
up to the limits of my strength am making addresses 
wherever I go along the Keswick lines. Will you com- 
mend me to God in your daily prayer, remembering me 
to Mrs. Hopkins with peculiar affection and to all the 
brethren ? " 

To this typewritten letter was added a postscript in the 
Doctor's own handwriting. " The itinerary I have been 
compelled to abandon " he wrote, " as my really critical 
illness here has delayed me by heart weakness, and for the 
present I have suspended all plans, quietly waiting further 
disclosures of the will of God. The doctors here 
advise me not to think of further shift until balance is 
restored. The suppressed sea-sickness broke up the 

* compensation ' for deficient heart action (which they 



32 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

say has been going on for years), and until this com- 
pensatory action is recovered further travel is out of 
question. 

« it would be to me an unspeakable blessing if a few 
like-minded brethren who can prevail in prayer, could 
meet with you, definitely to ask in agreement for my 
recovery. Twelve years ago, after blood poisoning, a 
dozen brethren met at the house of James Wright, in 
Bristol, and spent two hours in prayer for me ; and, since 
then, see what I have been able to accomplish ! Another 
crisis has come, and things impossible with man are 
possible with God." 

From this letter we see that Dr. Pierson's condition had 
become much worse, and that he himself realised the 
exceedingly critical nature of the illness. But hope was 
not yet abandoned, for " things impossible with man are 
possible with God." He knew that he was in God's 
hands, and there he was content to remain. 

As soon as he was able to leave Korea, Dr. Pierson, 
abandoning the remainder of his tour, sailed for America, 
and reaching his own country he remained for a couple of 
months in the kindly atmosphere of the Pacific Coast at 
Los Angeles. The messages despatched to his friends 
from there were few in number and brief in their contents. 
They were written by his daughter and gave reports of 
the patient's progress. They were not very alarming, and 
neither were they reassuring ; between the lines one could 
easily see that the life of the great preacher and teacher 
was hanging in the balance. Then came the news of the 
sufferer's journey home to Brooklyn. The very fact of his 
having faced the long distance by rail seemed to suggest 
some improvement in his condition, but a cabled message 
in the daily newspapers of June 5th, stating that the 
honoured servant of God had entered into his rest two 
days earlier, intimated to all who knew and loved him 



THE WORK OF LATER YEARS 33 



that his warfare on earth was over and that he had entered 
into the presence of the King. 

The end when it came was really unexpected, for up 
till the closing week of his life he was doing editorial 
work, and on the night before his death the doctor and 
nurse both declared that he was better. But early next 
morning it was seen that a serious change had taken 
place. The patient was unconscious and sinking. A 
telephone message summoning Mr. Delavan Pierson to 
his father's bedside was despatched with all speed, but 
before he had time to answer the call, at five minutes to 
eight o'clock, the aged servant of the Lord stopped 
breathing, and passed quietly away without regaining 
consciousness. The funeral services on Tuesday after- 
noon, June 6th, at which Dr. Speer and Dr. Jowett spoke, 
were of a truly remarkable character, the whole tone 
being of praise and victory. Many people said they had 
never attended such a funeral. 

" Nothing is here for tears," said the aged Manoah when 
they brought to him the news that Samson was dead. 
And there is " nothing for tears " in the translation of 
Dr. Pierson : rather would we thank God for such a gift 
to His Church, and for a long life lived so well and nobly 
lived in the service of his Lord and Master. 



D 



IV 



Dr. Pierson's Keswick Ministry 

THOUGH Dr. Pierson's association with Keswick 



did not go back over very many years, it was 



JL chiefly through his connection with that move- 
ment that he was known in this country, and it was at 
Keswick, perhaps, more than anywhere else that he 
possessed his kingdom and occupied the sphere fitting 
his great gifts. There he dominated the Convention by 
his spiritual and intellectual powers, and thousands hung 
upon his words with an intense eagerness for instruction 
and help that was never disappointed. 

It was comparatively late in life before he accepted the 
teaching for which the Convention stands. Throughout 
the whole of his ministerial career the Bible was to him 
the one Book that stood in splendid isolation above all 
others. With an enthusiasm that never lagged, and with 
an industry amazing in its completeness, he dug deeply 
in the Divine quarry, bringing to light its valuable metals 
and ever finding some new and wondrous gem that had 
escaped the eye of his fellow-workers in the same precious 
field. In this way he obtained a unique mastery of the 
sacred writings, but yet with all his wonderful and 
almost unequalled acquaintance with the Divine treasury, 
there were certain truths which he had failed to appro- 
priate experimentally, and thus, while giving intellectual 




DR. PIERSON'S KESWICK MINISTRY 35 



assent to them, he was without that intimate personal 
acquaintance which is absolutely essential to him who 
would lead others into the full measure of blessing. 

To the Rev. Prebendary Webb-Peploe I am indebted 
for some light concerning Dr. Pierson's introduction to 
some doctrines which he afterwards proclaimed with 
such zeal and earnestness. Attending, by invitation of 
Mr. D. L. Moody, the Northfield Convention in America, 
in 1895, Prebendary Webb-Peploe there met Dr. Pierson 
for the first time, and as they sat side by side on the 
platform while the meetings were in progress, the two 
eminent Bible teachers became intimately acquainted, 
and had much personal intercourse during all the time 
they were together at the Conference. 

" Dr. Pierson was not speaking much, if at all, at that 
Convention," Prebendary Webb-Peploe said to me in 
describing that first meeting-time at Northfield, " so that 
I did not then discern or enter into his wonderful power 
as an expositor of the Word of God, nor did I then know 
how, in the wonderful providence of God, my own poor 
words were used by the Lord for the spiritual help of my 
learned brother, but, on three different occasions in 
public meetings in England, I afterwards heard him say 
that in August, 1895, the Lord graciously opened his eyes 
to see the spiritual force and power of truths which he 
had theoretically known for many years, but the blessing 
and power of which he had not personally received, and 
it was through his friend Mr. Webb-Peploe that this 
light was given." 

This crisis in Dr. Pierson's spiritual experience left its 
mark upon all his subsequent ministry. A new note of 
entreaty characterised his preaching, and he emphasised, 
as he had never done before, the necessity of complete 
consecration on the part of Christians. Following upon 
this experience, it was not long before he came into close 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



touch with Keswick, and very soon he was standing upon 
its platform and leading others into the paths of personal 
holiness where lie the richest blessings which God has to 
bestow upon His children. 

Dr. Pierson's first visit to Keswick was in the year 
1897, and regarding that convention I find the following 
reference in the Life of Faith :— " One of the most 
deeply interesting meetings was the Testimony Meeting, 
held on Friday afternoon in the Tent, and presided over 
by Mr. Hopkins. Personal testimonies were given by 
the Rev. Francis Paynter, Rev. Mr. Roscoe (Uganda), 
and Dr. A. T. Pierson. As Dr. Elder Cumming remarked 
in prayer, it must have cost our brethren a great deal to 
give those testimonies. Dr. Pierson told how he had 
been led through a series of experiences which had trans- 
formed his character and his life. Many eyes on the plat- 
form, as well as in the general audience, were filled with tears 
as Dr. Pierson gave this testimony to the grace of God." 

In the pages of the Life of Faith, Dr. Pierson 
described " Keswick as seen near at Hand." " It was," 
he said, " a satisfaction, after watching this spiritual 
movement for twenty years from without, to have a 
providential opportunity to observe and study it from 
within ; and the visit of 1897 nas Deen productive of 
gratifying results." Very sympathetically indeed did Dr. 
Pierson write about what he had seen and heard during 
that memorable time in his experience, and he left Kes- 
wick, " where the Creator has fashioned such an amphi- 
theatre of grandeur," with the impression that, apart 
from all its material advantages, " Keswick Conventions 
have no real rival, and as gatherings for the promotion of 
practical holiness in living, and power in serving, we have 
yet seen nothing on either side of the water that furnishes 
any proper parallel." 

A month or two later, in the columns of his own 



DR. PIERSON'S KESWICK MINISTRY 37 



magazine, The Missionary Review of the World, Dr. Pierson 
entered more fully into his introduction to the movement 
with which he was subsequently so closely identified. 
There he stated that in April of that year (1897) an 
important convention was held in London, at which the 
leading Keswick teachers of the city and vicinity gave 
careful and candid expositions of the truth which they 
held and advocated, part of the purpose of this conven- 
tion being to furnish, in the metropolis of the world, an 
authoritative statement of this teaching, correcting mis- 
apprehension, and bringing these precious and vitalising 
truths into touch with many who had never been at Kes- 
wick itself during the Convention week. The way was 
singularly and providentially opened for him to attend 
this London Convention, and then to remain in England, 
holding a series of meetings, until the Keswick gathering 
itself; " so that a visit of some four or five months had 
its beginning and ending in connection with these two 
memorable weeks, each of which was occupied with the 
advocacy of these grand truths of grace and godliness. 
The opportunity referred to was gladly embraced, for 
there were some doubts that only such personal attend- 
ance at Keswick meetings could dissipate, and there was 
a strong desire to ' spy out the land,' and find out what 
weak points, if any, there were in the teaching now 
inseparable from the name of Keswick." 

We have already seen the effect of that visit, and we 
know what a warm place Keswick had in his heart from 
that time on. 

To the very end of his life Keswick continued to be 
very near his heart, and he always regarded it as a special 
privilege to minister to the vast crowds which yearly visit 
the little town up among the Cumberland hills in order 
to find the spiritual power and blessing that are needed 
for the enrichment and worship of service. 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



How whole-heartedly he entered into the movement 
was evidenced in many ways, for he recognised in its 
teaching the cure for many of the ailments with which 
the Christian Church is afflicted. In his little book, 
" The Story of Keswick," he laments the " present status 
of the Christian Church and the so-called Christian 
world," and the conclusion at which he arrives is this: 
" That to build up missions so that the structure shall 
risk no collapse, we must look well to the base — in the 
individual as well as the collective church life. We must 
press home on the believer the demand for personal 
holiness. The Word of God must be restored to its 
supreme place as the inspired, infallible testimony of 
God ; the personality and power of the Holy Spirit, th 
indispensableness of Christ to human salvation, th 
universal priesthood of believers and the need of a simpl 
and spiritual worship, the call to separation and self- 
denial for Christ and the neglected hope of the Lord's 
coming — these and like truths must be preached, taught 
driven home to the conscience until God's people ar 
brought into personal, living, loving sympathy with Him- 
self." 

That Dr. Pierson himself taught them with a convic 
tion of purpose, and in the power of the Holy Spirit eve 
one will admit. At many of the Conventions he was on 
of the stalwarts who had always a message for the hungr 
multitudes and who fed them out of God's own rich and 
abundant storehouse. One of the most memorable Con- 
ventions in which he took part was that of 1905, when 
all hearts were warmed and subdued by the might 
happenings in Wales, and when the spirit of prayer an 
expectancy laid its hold upon the assembled crowds. At 
the Wednesday evening meeting in the Skiddaw-stree 
Tent Dr. Pierson spoke on "The Inbreathed Spirit," and 
in the impressive hush which settled upon the gatherin 



DR. PIERSON'S KESWICK MINISTRY 39 



it was felt that the Spirit who formed the subject of the 
address was Himself in the midst of the waiting people 
and was doing His convicting work. 

Very touching and wonderfully powerful in its effect 
was the incident from his own experience which fell from 
the speaker's lips. He said : " I remember, as I stand 
here — it is twenty-seven years ago, — that once, in 
Michigan, I and my three children were in the water 
over half an hour, in instant peril of drowning. One of 
those children with me in the water was the beloved one 
who fell asleep in India a year ago last November. She 
was a little child ; and when she came out of the water, 
and went home to her dear mother, who knew nothing 
about the peril until it was all over, she took pen and 
paper and, with trembling hand, wrote : ' God having 
saved me to-day from drowning, I give myself henceforth 
to Him.' When, in India, she had almost died two days 
before she actually departed, a companion said to her : 
* Louise, you almost left us yesterday. If God had called 
you would you have been glad ? ' ' Oh ! wouldn't I,' she 
replied. The Spirit had awakened such desires after God, 
that, when He called, she leaped like a tired child into 
her Father's arms. The thought of her, and of that 
escape from imminent drowning twenty-seven years ago, 
almost overpowers me as I stand here. I cannot but feel 
that, as to you, my friends, I have risen from the dead. 
I have been spared twenty-seven years to make this 
address in Keswick to-night. I might have died then." 

Such a testimony, as can readily be understood, had a 
melting effect upon the audience, and interrupting the 
address, the whole gathering broke into the singing of 
" Songs of praises I will ever give to Thee." 

When this meeting ended, the spirit of prayer seemed 
to fall upon a large section of the audience, and many 
resolved to wait behind for an all-night prayer-meeting. 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



What happened at that remarkable season of waiting 
upon God was described the following evening by Dr. 
Pierson, who had been in control of the proceedings and 
had been deeply impressed by the whole character of the 
gathering. " Those present last night at the meeting, 
which lasted up to three o'clock in the morning, will 
have seen a Welsh evangelistic and prayer-meeting repro- 
duced in Keswick," he remarked. "Those who were 
there will not need me to expatiate much upon the 
subject. It was the finest illustration of what I have 
seen in Keswick of the way of the Holy Ghost answering 
prayer to remove obstacles. When we proposed to meet 
in the tent for prayer it was obvious, within five minutes, 
that there was some disturbing element, of the nature of 
which we scarcely knew. 

" Remarks were made, not charitable remarks, but 
accusative in their character, and violent, and sounded a 
little like the tone of anarchy, and they caused some 
distress and some dissatisfaction among those who were 
jealous that there should be harmony, and love, and 
concord. But there were a few godly men who gave 
themselves to prayer that God would graciously over-rule 
what we felt was a Satanic disturbance. After a while, 
being present myself, I felt a deep impulse that the Spirit 
would have me speak to that congregation. I ascended 
the platform, and said to them, when we were all feeling 
a desire to have an all-night meeting : ' There are a great 
many people in this vicinity, lodging in these houses. Some 
are partially invalided and weak in their nervous system, 
some aged; they all need sleep, and any boisterous 
exhibitions on our part will disturb them. If you are 
content to stay here till three o'clock in the morning, I 
will stay with you ; only, let us not look on our own 
things, but on the things of others. If you will accord 
to that will you raise your hands ? ' Every hand went 



DR. PIERSON'S KESWICK MINISTRY 41 



up, and from that time forward the devil was defeated 
and the Holy Ghost reigned in that assembly, and the 
obvious conditions of the before and after were as abso- 
lutely plain to my mind as the difference between midnight 
and dawn. 

" What took place in that assembly ? " he continued. 
" It was one of the most remarkable meetings I have 
ever seen in Keswick. In the first place, there were 368 
written requests for prayer sent up for a definite purpose 
to the platform, and, I think, almost every one of those 
papers had from two to three requests upon it, so that 
we had upwards of a thousand requests for prayer, 
occupying one-and-a-half hours of time. Confessions of 
sin followed — all sorts, from all quarters, the tent mean- 
while filling up respectably, with about seven or eight 
hundred people. Then came a marvellous experience, 
such as I have never seen before. I suggested that those 
who were ready, without any dependence upon feeling, 
to take God as a matter of faith, simply depending upon 
His promise, and standing upon His promise, should 
rise. One rose, and another, and yet another, till, to our 
amazement in the course of ten minutes, every man and 
woman in the tent was on his or her feet to take Almighty 
God as a God of fidelity, and claim His promise simply 
on the ground of faith. 

" The hush of God came on all the assembly. In the 
midst of the assembly a man had come in who was in a 
state of drink. He found Christ in the meeting, went 
out of the meeting, brought in his wife with a nursing 
babe and her sister. They laboured with those two 
women to bring them to the knowledge of Christ. One 
man that was prayed for is a minister of a church in 
England, and when the statement was read he got up and 
said : ' You may change to praise, for I am here and 
have got blessing ! ' And so, when it came to be twenty- 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



five minutes to three, it was suggested that then it would 
be a good time to acknowledge in praise what God had 
done for us ; and just as we had had a marvellous witness 
of people rising to claim the power of God by faith, we had 
now another exhibition of people rising to testify in praise 
to God for blessing then and there received. 

" Among others, a man who believed that he had 
committed the ' unpardonable ' sin rose and told how 
his great burden had been rolled away on God. Thus, 
at that meeting we had a striking exhibition of how when 
everything is brought into accord with the Spirit, and all 
into harmony with each other in a Christian assembly, 
God at once begins marvellously to work for His own 
glory." 

Nor were these the only memorable incidents in this 
remarkable Convention. At the closing meeting in 
Skiddaw Street Tent on Friday night, the Rev. E. W. 
Moore delivered a searching address on " The Ordeal by 
Fire," and instead of following with the message he had 
prepared, Dr. Pierson gave his testimony instead, " his 
heart and voice," as Mr. Head has said, " made tender 
by the spiritual enduement of the moment and the Pente- 
costal power which pervaded that gathering." Others 
followed him in testimony, " evidencing that spirit of 
brokenness of heart and contrition of spirit which lead to 
humble confessions of sin to God, and, in many cases, of 
harboured wrong to fellow man." 

Writing on board the steamship which took him to 
America a day or two after the Convention closed, and 
with all the impressions of that wonderful night of con- 
fession still fresh upon him, Dr. Pierson vividly described 
the never-to-be-forgotten events and scenes. " While 
Rev. E. W. Moore," he said, "was giving his address, 
from I Cor. iii. 11-15, on the Ordeal of Fire— dwelling 
with searching power on the necessity, not only of 



DR. PIERSON'S KESWICK MINISTRY 43 



building on the right foundation, but with purified 
materials ; and picturing the careless builder, fleeing from 
his burning house, losing all work and reward, and him- 
self saved only as one who has barely escaped the flame 
— I felt God's refining fire going through me, revealing 
the wood, hay, and stubble, of work and motive. When 
I rose to speak, so humbling and overwhelming was this 
conviction, that, when called upon to 4 lead in prayer and 
address ' the meeting, it was quite involuntary that I 
should first of all make my confession. I did so, and 
asked others, who, like me, had felt conscious of God's 
direct dealing, to stand with me before God, as those 
who then and there besought Him to refine us now, that 
worthless material might not accumulate against the 
Coming Day of Fire. The invitation was so responded 
to that the whole tent full of people rose as one man ! And 
while prayer was being offered, many voices joined in 
audible Amens. Not one word of the proposed address, 
carefully prepared for this closing meeting, was ever 
delivered. Even the subject was never indicated. It had 
been my intention to speak on ' Praying for the Holy 
Ghost.' As Prebendary Webb-Peploe well says, ' God 
had no need for the address, as He proposed giving an 
illustration of the theme instead.' 

" The prayer was no sooner concluded than a spirit of 
penitent confession was already so manifest that it could 
not be restrained, and broke out in every quarter ; and I 
stood there on my feet for about two hours and a-half 
witnessing the Holy Spirit's wondrous working. Scarcely 
any human guidance was needed. Christ was in the 
chair. A soldier confessed to desertion and theft, and 
left the tent to write out his confession ; and some of us, 
later on, saw the letters he had written. A commander 
in the Navy grandly declared his purpose to make his 
ship a floating Bethel. Not less than fifty clergymen, 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



evangelists, and leaders in Christian work, confessed to 
sin of avarice, ambition, appetite, lust of applause, 
neglect of the Word, of prayer, of souls ; hundreds of 
other individual confessions of various sins of omission 
and commission followed, sometimes a half-dozen or 
more being on their feet at once." 

Dr. Pierson's last visit to Keswick was two years ago — 
in 1909. On that occasion his friends were grieved to 
see the change that had come over him ; he was much 
more feeble, and, while his spirit was as keen and 
enthusiastic as ever, it was obvious that his physical 
strength did not correspond with his mental alertness. 
He himself confessed that he was there against the advice 
of his doctor. One feared to give expression to the 
feeling that never again would the voice of the great 
preacher thrill the Convention multitudes, and yet all 
who heard him seemed to intuitively realise that he was 
delivering his valedictory addresses, and that the messages 
which he was then proclaiming were the last that would 
fall from his lips amid the beloved surroundings that 
knew him so well. 

And this feeling seemed to be shared by Dr. Pierson 
himself. There was something infinitely pathetic in the 
personal remarks which he made at the close of his first 
address on " Foundation Truths in Holy Living" — some- 
thing that seemed to indicate that the long fellowship was 
about to be broken, and that they must not part with 
the least shadow of misunderstanding between them. 
Speaking with manifest emotion, he said that before 
coming to the meeting that morning, that he might get 
right with God, he had made confession to God of a sin 
against Him which he would not mention to his audience, 
as it was quite sufficient that he had mentioned it with 
deep penitence to Him. But it had occurred to him that 
he had been guilty of a sin to his brethren. " In my 



DR. PIERSON'S KESWICK MINISTRY 45 



zeal," he said, " to be true and genuine and sincere I have 
long neglected the cultivation of winning and attractive 
manners, and, no doubt, have been a stumbling-block to 
many souls ; and I make that confession here this 
morning. We are told to speak the truth in love. Some 
of us may be so zealous for the truth that we forget the 
love, or so zealous for the love that we forget the truth ; 
and I want to say this morning that if anything in me 
has been repellent through undue frankness or brusque- 
ness, I repent of it before God, and I acknowledge it with 
sorrow to you." 

No one who listened to these words is ever likely to 
forget the effect which they produced, and when a minute 
later Dr. Pierson, having made his own confession, asked 
any to stand up if the Lord had shown them something 
in their life that must be rectified, Godward or manward, 
and to take an instant, visible, decisive step in the recog- 
nition of this fact, a large number rose to their feet and 
were commended to God in prayer by Mr. Hopkins. 

Looking back upon this Convention one recalls with 
a subdued interest some of its happenings. The whole 
atmosphere of the place seemed suffused with the spirit of 
love in a degree even more pronounced than usual. Dr. 
Pierson's own words, too, had in them almost a note of 
farewell ; it seemed as if the thought of death were back 
of every word that he uttered, and he spoke with that 
intense earnestness which suggested the last word of a 
dying man to dying men. As a matter of fact, the very 
last address that he delivered had in it a reference to 
death. He was dealing, on the Friday, with the last of 
his " Foundation Truths in Holy Living," " Love " being 
the particular theme specially emphasised in his discourse. 
In burning phrase, and with a wooing tone that seemed 
irresistible in its power, he pleaded with his hearers for a 
complete surrender to the will of God. " If God wants 



46 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

you to go, say, to China," he remarked, " China is the 
nearest place on earth to Heaven for you. To do the will 
of God is the greatest possible delight, and wherever He 
sends you He will go with you, and whatever He gives 
you to do, He will give you His own Divine strength with 
which to do it, and in the exile and loneliness you will 
have the sweetest experience of God's presence that you 
ever had." 

" Compensations do not wait for hereafter, blessed be 
God, they come even here," he went on to add. " I never 
take a step for God that I do not get my recompense even 
here, and the greater the self-denial involved, the greater 
the Divine compensation, even in this life. I have not 
any sympathy with those who get up in prayer meetings 
and talk about their crosses. I think we ought to be 
talking about our crowns, and not producing the impres- 
sion upon an unbelieving and impenitent world, that the 
Christian life is a life of wailing, a yoke intolerable and 
chafing. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. It is 
the obedience of love that makes it so easy." 

Then he spoke of the fear of death. " A great many 
people," he said, " all their lifetime are subject to bondage, 
through fear of death, and whenever disease comes and 
knocks at the door they are in terror. I am not one of 
those who look on death as a wonderful blessing. Death 
is my enemy. I understand that. Death is the penalty 
of sin. I understand that. But, if the Lord tarries, and 
I fall before death, God can transform the avenging demon 
into an introducing angel, and He knows how to bring 
me to His presence even through the experience of dying. 
What are you afraid of? Won't God be with you in the 
valley of the shadow of death, and in death itself ? You 
shall fear no evil when your life is full-grown ; all these 
fears and fancies cannot abide where perfect love 
abides," 



DR. PIERSON'S KESWICK MINISTRY 47 



These were among the last words he ever spoke from 
the Convention platform. As he passed with a friend 
from the tent to the house in which he was residing, his 
mind was full of the spirit of love in which the Conven- 
tion had been bathed. " I have never seen anything like 
it in any place," he remarked. " The kindness of the 
Trustees is more than I can express. Here am I a Non- 
conformist, and most of the others clergy of the 
Established Church of England. Everything has been 
done not only for my comfort and happiness, but they 
have done all they could to put me in the forefront and 
give me every honour. I feel very grateful to them all." 

And so passed his last Convention, from which he 
took his departure with the strains of " God be with you 
till we meet again " ringing in his ears — the parting 
prayer of friends who had sat at his feet to be taught in 
spiritual things, who loved him with a deep and tender 
love, and who intutiively felt that the parting was to be 
until they met " at Jesus' feet." Never again at 
Keswick will be heard that voice which so often spoke in 
the Master's name and with Divine power behind it. The 
empty place will not easily be filled, but while God carries 
off His workmen He continues His work. Keswick's 
message to the Church and the individual is as much 
needed to-day, and though some of the voices which have 
faithfully declared it in times gone by are now joining in 
the everlasting chorus around the Throne, others are 
called to proclaim the truths and to stand in the front of 
the movement. 

The memory of what Dr. Pierson was enabled to do at 
Keswick and elsewhere will not readily pass, and many 
will thank God, here and through all eternity, for his 
faithful and effective ministry. 



V 



The Art of Illustration 

MR. MOODY used to say that a sermon without 
illustrations resembled a house without win- 
dows, and that our American brethren in the 
ministry are in full agreement with this dictum, is obvious 
from the manner in which they draw upon incidents in 
history and in their own experience to emphasise and 
illuminate the leading points in their sermons. 

Dr. Pierson was no exception to the rule. None knew 
better than he how to take hold of some historical fact, 
and with striking effect harness it to his argument. There 
is a feeling in some quarters that the free use of illustra- 
tions is a sign of intellectual weakness, and that it is 
but a poor substitute for well-reasoned argument. That 
may be true in some degree of that type of sermon which 
is only a series of stories loosely strung together without 
any real connecting link, but the illustration of a sermon 
or an address was with Dr. Pierson an art acquired only 
after long and patient practice. No one could employ 
illustrations as Dr. Pierson did unless he had read widely 
and studied deeply. It was not from one realm of know- 
ledge only that he drew those striking incidents that 
glittered in his address like gems of rare and wondrous 
beauty ; his studies carried him into many fields, and just 

48 



THE ART OF ILLUSTRATION 



as the busy bee gathers honey from this flower and from 
that, as it flits about in the summer sunlight, so did he 
with unceasing industry draw into his rich storehouse the 
food that was to pass out again illumined by the alchemy 
of his own genius. 

Coming much in contact with all classes of people, Dr. 
Pierson had many experiences, and he frequently referred 
to them in his public deliverances, but only, of course, in 
so far as they illustrated some point and were likely 
to be of help to others. Such an incident as the following 
was often used to add impressiveness to the appeal of 
Scripture : — 

" I knew a young man who was an infidel. He told 
me in conversation that he did not sympathise with my 
belief in God, he did not even believe in a future state. 
He said, £ When I die I am going to dust, and that will 
be the end of me.' He had a Christian mother, who had 
long prayed for him. One day he came home from his 
office about noon and said, ' Mother, I feel fatigued ; I 
think I will lie down till supper is spread ; ' so he laid 
down and fell asleep. At one o'clock she spoke to him 
and said, ' We are ready to sit down at the table,' but she 
could not wake him. She shook him violently, but she 
could not rouse him. He was in a comatose state, and 
there was no perceptible pulse, and he sank lower and 
lower until his breathing also was scarcely perceptible. 
They sent at once for a physician, who came in, examined 
his pulse, listened to his heart, made a thorough examina- 
tion, but said, ' I can do nothing for him ; you will just 
be compelled to leave him as he is ; he may come out of 
it, and he may not.' He went away. About five o'clock 
in the afternoon, as they were sitting round him, simply 
watching the last rays of flickering life, he opened his 
eyes, he looked round, he saw his mother, he stretched 
out his hand and took her hand ; and he said, * Mother, 

E 



ARTHUR t. P1ERSON, D.D. 



what you taught me is all true ; there is a future life. I 
have been treading along the verge of another world, and 
been looking over into that other world ; mother, it is all 
true.' He shut his eyes and died. God allowed him to 
come back from the other world just long enough to assure 
that mother who had trained him in the true faith, that 
he saw at the last his error and abandoned his infidelity, 
and then he passed away." 

In pressing home the invitation of the Gospel, Dr. 
Pierson brought into play all his vivid, passionate power 
of appeal. Like Mr. Spurgeon, when speaking to an 
audience in which unconverted persons formed a large 
proportion, he was always afraid that some one might go 
away without fully comprehending the import of the 
message which he was delivering, without understanding 
that the salvation offered was without money and without 
price, and that it could be obtained by simple faith. He 
felt that it was a glorious Gospel he had to preach, and 
lest its beauty should in any way be obscured he laboured 
with aJl his might to make the picture irresistible in its 
attractiveness, and to show Christ to others as He was to 
himself — the fairest among ten thousand and the 
altogether lovely. To support and emphasise his presen- 
tation of the Divine message, he selected his illustrations 
with scrupulous care, for while he knew that a great truth 
can be assisted in its mission by a timely and appropriate 
anecdote, he was also aware of the fact that its purpose 
may be hindered and defeated by a story without either 
point or application. Some of his finest illustrations are 
to be found in his Gospel utterances. The love of Jesus 
Christ was to him such a wonderful theme that he felt it 
demanded the very best of his gifts, and he laboured 
incessantly to make the Saviour so winsome that none 
could withstand the appeal of His love. 

" There is something about the love of Jesus Christ 



THE ART OF ILLUSTRATION 



that forbids not only description, but imitation," Dr. 
Pierson has said. " We can only now and then reflect a 
single beam from this Sun of Righteousness when we 
catch the inspiration of its unselfishness. We have been 
accustomed to say that a mother's love can never be 
counterfeited, but how much more the Saviour's love ! " 
And to illustrate the wonderful love of Jesus Christ he 
would relate this story : — " I remember during the late 
American War there was a young soldier that was 
wounded very seriously, and very nigh fatally. He was 
borne to the hospital, and rapidly became delirious ; but 
before that he had given the attending surgeon the name 
and address of his parents. The surgeon, fearing that the 
worst was near at hand, sent a telegraphic message to his 
mother, who lived not a great way off. She took the next 
train and came immediately down to where her son lay in 
this delirious state. The surgeon met her at the door of 
the hospital, and he said, ' Madam, you must not go in. 
Your son is hanging between life and death ; the least 
excitement, even the excitement of meeting you, might 
turn the scale and prove fatal. You must not go in ; ' and 
there that mother stood in the vestibule of the hospital 
and looked through the door at her son lying on the cot, 
and for two or three hours of mortal agony, such as a 
mother only could experience, she yearned to go and sit 
by his bedside. Finally, she could no longer endure it, 
and she beckoned to the surgeon, and said, ' Doctor, just 
let me go and take that nurse's place. I won't say a word 
to him ; I won't let him know that I am his mother ; I 
will not even call him by name or put a kiss upon his 
brow, but I must go and sit by him ; I shall die if I stay 
here.' ' Well,' said the doctor, ' Madam, you may go if 
you will solemnly promise me that you will not let him 
know who you are.' She promised. She went in and 
took the nurse's place. The poor boy was lying with his 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



face towards the wall ; by-and-by, in the fever of delirium, 
he turned round for a moment and groaned ; and then as 
he turned back again towards the wall, she reached out 
her hand and laid it on the fevered brow. ' Why,' he 
said, ' nurse, that is just like my mother's hand: If it is 
impossible to counterfeit a mother's love, who shall 
counterfeit a Saviour's ! Everything about it, all the 
tenderness of His ministry,— the precious words He spoke 
to such women as the woman of Samaria at the well, to 
the woman who was a sinner, in the house of Simon the 
leper, when she washed His feet with her tears and wiped 
them with the hairs of her head, — all the marvellous 
majesty and mercy of that ministry defy competition, defy 
counterfeiting, almost defy imitation. And when Jesus 
speaks it is the Father's voice, it is the voice of God ; 
when He touches us, it is the touch of God." 

Here we have the art of illustration at its highest point. 
It is an axiom with preachers and evangelists that nothing 
so appeals to any gathering, particularly to an audience 
of men, so forcibly as an allusion to mothers and their 
love, for no matter how much the heart may be steeled 
against elevating influences it seldom resists the memory 
of mother and home ; at the whisper of the sacred name 
of mother the door swings open, and all further resistance 
is for ever conquered. 

Dr. Pierson knew this, and in the incident just quoted, 
as well as in many others like it, he applied a dynamic 
that shattered the walls of opposition and left the way 
clear for the comforting and the healing balm of the 
Gospel. 

In the presentation of Christ's offer of mercy he was 
equally effective. The very simplicity of the way of sal- 
vation, paradoxical as it may seem, is to many a stumbling 
block, for they cannot realise that the Divine gift is to be 
obtained on such easy terms ; they think that they must 



THE ART OF ILLUSTRATION 53 



do something to merit it, and thus they are led into all 
manner of vain attempts to win the favour of Christ in 
order to win His acceptance. Dr. Pierson was wont to 
say that " if you can put forth your hand to receive a gift, 
you are able to put forth your will and receive the gift of 
God, even Jesus Christ, as your Saviour." And with 
some such illustration as the following he would emphasise 
the simplicity of the transaction between God and man : 
" I heard an old lady who was starting on a railway 
journey from an American station, out of which many 
trains move, although in different directions. Not having 
travelled much on the rail cars, she got confused. The 
old lady I speak of was going up to Bay City, Michigan, 
and she was afraid that she was, perhaps, on the wrong 
train. She reached over, and showed her ticket to some- 
body in the seat immediately in front of her, and said, ' I 
want to go to Bay City. Is this the right train ? ' ' Yes, 
madam.' Still, she was not quite at ease, for she thought 
that perhaps this fellow-passenger might have got into 
the wrong train too ; so she stepped across the aisle .of 
the car, and showed her ticket to another person, and 
was again told, ' Yes, madam, this is the right train.' 
But still the old lady was a little uncertain. In a few 
moments in came the guard ; and she saw on his cap the 
conductor's ribbon, and she beckoned to him, and said, 
' I want to go to Bay City ; is this the right train ? ' 
' Yes, madam, this is the right train.' And now she 
settled back in her seat, and was asleep before the train 
moved. 

" That illustrates the simplicity of taking God at his 
word. She did nothing but just receive the testimony of 
that conductor. That is all ; but that is faith. The 
Lord Jesus Christ says to you, ' I love you ; I died for 
you. Do you believe ? Will you receive the salvation 
that I bought for you with My own blood ? ' You need 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



do no work ; not even so much as to get up and turn 
round. You need not go and ask your fellow-man 
whether he has believed, and received, and been saved. 
All that you need to do is with all your heart to say, 
' Dear Lord, I do take this salvation that Thou hast 
bought for me, and brought to me.' Simple, is it not ? 
Yes, very simple: yet such receiving it is the soul of 
faith." 

Nothing could exceed the simplicity of this method of 
explaining God's offer of salvation, and put so clearly it 
could not fail to reach hearts that were searching for the 
gift of gifts. In one of his last addresses at Keswick, Dr. 
Pierson admirably illustrated the manner of appropriating 
God's great gift by a reference to Baron Uxhill, of Russia, 
who, a little while before, had been travelling over the 
United States, gathering money to erect little chapels on 
his estate for his retainers. Baron Uxhill has put on 
record the testimony that when he was an infidel there 
came some commonplace, uneducated evangelists upon a 
neighbouring farm, and they wrought such wonderful 
results among the workmen that, although he cared 
nothing for Christ or the Christian faith, he said : " Come 
on my estate. Anything that will make drunken men 
sober, and indolent men industrious, and immoral men 
moral, and dishonest men honest, I want to have on my 
estate." They came, and a wonderful transformation 
took place, so that that infidel, that agnostic actually 
built a little chapel for them to speak to the retainers on 
his estate. They asked him if he would not come and 
open the chapel, and he said : " I do not take any stock 
of what you are saying and doing, but still I will come." 
He went ; they gave him a Bible, and asked him if he 
would not read it. He took it home with him, and began 
to read it, just to see what it contained. By-and-by he 
came to i Pet. ii. 24: " He bare our sins in His own 



THE ART OF ILLUSTRATION 55 



body on the tree." He dropped on his knees, and lifted 
his heart to God, and said : " And mine also ; " and those 
three little words brought the light of God into his soul. 

Ever eager also to emphasise God's dealings in love 
and mercy with His children, Dr. Pierson employed many 
striking illustrations to illumine and beautify the constant 
care which our Father exercises on behalf of His own. 
For example : — " Moses, in Deuteronomy, compares the 
Lord's dealings with His people to the eagle stirring up 
her nest ; fluttering over her young ; spreading abroad 
her wings ; taking and bearing them on her wings (Deut. 
xxxii. 11). How beautiful that figure is! The eagle 
builds her eyrie far up on the rocky heights, and when 
the wings of her young are beginning to grow, so that the 
facilities for flying are supplied them, as they are apt to 
be too self-indulgent and over-fond of the soft lining of a 
warm resting place, the mother eagle plants a thorn in 
the side of the nest, so that, as the little ones nestle down 
against the cushion of ease, they are pricked by the thorn, 
and so get up and begin to move around. And then, if 
necessary, she actually crowds them out of the nest, 
pushes them along towards the edge of the cliff, and 
sometimes even off the edge ; so that, as they begin to 
fall, they are compelled to use their wings, fluttering and 
trying to sustain themselves in the air. When they 
tumble over and over, in unsuccessful efforts, the mother 
eagle, watching them, sweeps down beneath them, and 
spreads abroad her great wings that measure sometimes 
twelve feet from tip to tip, and as the little fledgling is 
falling to apparent destruction, she receives it upon her 
maternal pinions, and bears it back again to the eyrie. 
Does not the Lord sometimes allow His children to fall, 
because He would teach them how to fly ? But the Lord 
keeps watch over His little fledgling, and, as His disciple 
tumbles over and over in helpless approach to destruction, 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



He sweeps down beneath, spreads abroad His great wings, 
and receives the penitent believer, and bears him back 
again to the height of conscious fellowship with God." 

As has already been said, Dr. Pierson was an ardent 
soul-winner, everything else in life being subordinated to 
the one great passion of his life— the doing of God's will 
and the bringing of men and women to the Saviour's feet. 
His was, indeed, a beautiful example of the surrendered 
life. He did not, as some men are inclined to do, put 
himself upon an eminence, and from his self-chosen eleva- 
tion, issue his instructions to those in the ranks. He 
asked none to tread a path along which his own feet had 
never travelled. His command was not, "Go"; it was 
an invitation — " Come." Impressed with what one man 
can accomplish under the impulse of a mighty passion 
for souls, he was always pleading with Christians to give 
God the reins of their life in order that He might use 
them as He wished, for he knew that the holding back 
of anything from God stems the flow of the blessing and 
restricts the area of usefulness. 

As an illustration of how God can use and bless the life 
consecrated to His service, he frequently told the follow- 
ing : — " Years ago, the region about London Docks con- 
tained as large a heathen population as any district in 
Africa. Back of the huge warehouses were ' innumer- 
able courts and alleys, filled with fog and dirt, and every 
horror of sight, sound and smell — a rendezvous for the 
lowest types of humanity.' The wealthy and influential 
class in this settlement were the rum-sellers and keepers 
of gambling-hells. Children were born, and grew to 
middle age on these precincts, who never heard the name 
of Christ, except in an oath. Thirty thousand souls were 
included in one parish here ; but the clergyman never 
ventured out of the church to teach. 
"A young man, named Charles Lowder, belonging to 



THE ART OF ILLUSTRATION 57 



an old English family, happened to pass through the dis- 
trict just after leaving Oxford. His classmates were going 
into politics, or the army, full of ambition and hope to 
make a name in the world; but Lowder heard 'a cry of 
mingled agony, suffering, laughter, and blasphemy coming 
from these depths that rang in his ears, go where he would.' 
He resolved to give up all other work in the world to help 
these people. He took a house in one of the lowest slums, 
and lived in it. ' It is only one of themselves that they 
will hear ; not patronising visitors.' He preached every 
day in the streets, and for months was pelted with brick- 
bats, shot at, and driven back with curses. He had, 
unfortunately, no eloquence with which to reach them ; 
he was a slow, stammering speaker, but bold, patient, and 
in earnest. Year after year he lived among them. Even 
the worst ruffian learned to respect the tall, thin curate, 
whom he saw stopping the worst street fights, facing 
mobs, or nursing the victims of Asiatic cholera. 

" Mr. Lowder lived in London Docks for twenty-three 
years. Night schools and industrial schools were opened, 
and refuges for drunkards, discharged prisoners, and fallen 
women. A large church was built, and several mission 
chapels. His chief assistants were the men and women 
whom he had rescued from ' the paths that abut on hell.' 
A visitor to the church said, 'The congregation differs 
from others in that they are all in such deadly earnest.' 

" Mr. Lowder broke down under his work, and rapidly 
grew into an old careworn man. He died in a village in 
the Tyrol, whither he had gone for a month's rest. He 
was brought back to the Docks, where he had worked so 
long. Across the bridge, where he had once been chased 
by a mob bent on his murder, his body was reverently 
carried, while the police were obliged to keep back the 
crowd of sobbing people, who pressed forward to get a 
glimpse of 'Father Lowder,' as they called him. 'No 



58 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



such a funeral,' said a London paper, ' has ever been seen 
in England.' The whole population of East London, 
turned out, stopping work for that day. The special 
trains run to Chislehurst were filled, and thousands 
followed on foot, miserable men and women whom he had 
lifted up from barbarism to life and hope." 

Impressive as they are to read, one can easily under- 
stand how much more powerful such illustrations as 
those quoted were when backed by the personality of the 
living preacher, and when every word was uttered with 
the stirring appeal of that voice which for fifty years rang 
with the grandest message ever given to man to declare. 
Dr. Pierson chose his illustrations as a surgeon selects 
the instruments necessary for an operation ; every arrow 
in his quiver had its own special work to do, and that 
they reached their appointed mark was proved again and 
again. 

For every gift there is ample scope in the service of 
the King, and when it is laid upon the altar the Lord 
accepts and blesses it. 



VI 



Characteristics of a Great Life 

" A HUMAN life, filled with the presence and power 
/ \ of God, is one of God's choicest gifts to His 
X V. Church and to the world." 

So wrote Dr. Pierson, as the introductory words to one 
of his biographies, and we may take his words and say 
that his own life, filled as it was with the presence and 
power of God, was indeed a choice gift to the Church and 
to the world. Endowed with natural abilities far above 
the ordinary, he consecrated them all to the service of 
God ; laying them upon the altar, he gladly yielded them 
to his Divine Master, and was ever willing to spend and 
be spent in the cause to which his life was devoted. He 
considered it a rare honour to be used in the holy ministry. 
Others might talk of what they had sacrificed in the way 
of worldly possessions and positions in order to serve God 
in His Church, but the word " sacrifice " in such a rela- 
tion as that had no place in his vocabulary; when he 
thought of the sufferings of his Lord he considered that 
none could ever do too much in the service of a Master 
who had given His life to bring rebel man to Himself. 

Few men have been more earnest than Dr. Pierson in 
proclaiming the Good News of salvation. It was an 
earnestness that never seemed to be relaxed, an earnest* 

5? 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



ness that sometimes developed into a severity of manner 
and speech, and which, especially amongst those who did 
not know him personally, produced the impression that 
his nature was harsh and forbidding. " No doubt," says 
the Rev. J. B. Figgis, " his intellectual powers, his giant 
grasp of truth, his energy of expression, would have made 
him remarkable in any period of the Church's history ; 
but the mellowing and soul-subduing power of sanctifica- 
tion, for which man has no credit, brought in traits of 
character of another and gentler order, and without these 
the other faculties must have been somewhat rigid, if not 
stern. It was very touching to hear him speak on a 
certain occasion of his consciousness of fault, and the 
desire for grace to amend it, but without the truth for 
which our Cumberland Convention stands, intellectual 
eminence might easily have been linked with intellectual 
arrogance. Under the teaching of the Tent, the strong 
man bowed himself, and we have found him many times 
manifesting the simplicity and humility of a little child. 

" His nature was exceedingly sensitive," Mr. Figgis 
adds. " Before a service one dared not speak to him 
unless he spoke to you, and after a service, nine times out 
of ten, one was awed into silence, and so was he. This 
' one thing ' he did, and everything was sacrificed to the 
one thing. I shall never forget how men of the strongest 
nature I ever knew were broken down under his appeals, 
and sat in the vestry after the service with the tears 
streaming down their cheeks." 

There were depths in Dr. Pierson's nature not under- 
stood by the ordinary individual. " Those who knew him 
only by his public ministry and by his writings saw but 
one side of his character," writes the Rev. J. Stuart 
H olden, " but to those of us who were privileged to enter 
into the inner life of his heart and home there were 
revealed in that intercourse virtues and characteristics 



CHARACTERISTICS OF A GREAT LIFE 61 



which set him far above ordinary men. To know him 
thus was to love him indeed, and rarely have I known one 
who like him opened and responded so readily to affection. 
Often austere and somewhat forbidding in manner when 
engaged in the high service of speaking and preaching, he 
was, however, in his personal friendships tender, sympa- 
thetic, and affectionate to an extraordinary degree. 
During many long journeys which I have taken in com- 
pany with him by land and sea, and in the sharing of 
many common interests, both public and private, I have 
learned to know and love him as one in whom not only 
the gifts of the Spirit were conspicuous, but the graces 
also of the same Spirit were abundant." 

To this may be added the testimony of Sir Robert 
Anderson, K.C.B., who writes to me : — " I have seldom 
known a more gracious man. An incident which lives in 
my memory will serve to exemplify this trait in his 
character. With profit and delight I attended the course 
of lectures he gave at Exeter Hall half-a-dozen years ago. 
Immediately at the close of his first lecture he turned to 
give me a hearty greeting. I told him how much his 
ministry helped me ; and in response to a deprecatory 
remark, I repeated my words still more strongly. ' It 
was a rich pot of ointment you gave me to-night,' said I, 
j and there was only one little fly in it.' ' And that was 

? ' he asked. 1 The way you named the Lord again 

and again,' I replied. 1 Why do you not speak of Him as 
His disciples always did, and not like the vagabond Jews 
in Acts ? ' * My bad training,' said he ; ' I learned the 
habit in a theological college ; keep reminding me of it.' 

" The longer I thought over this incident, the more I 
felt rebuked by the grace with which he accepted my 
rebuke. We next met that night week at his second 
lecture ; and the moment he pronounced the Benediction 
he turned again to greet me, and his first word was, as he 



62 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



grasped my hand, ' Wasn't I better to-night ? ' Who could 
help loving such a man ! Life is lonelier, and the world 
is emptier, now that he is gone." 

While capable in private life of much light-hearted 
merriment, always enjoying fun with the relish of a school- 
boy, it was only on rare occasions that he permitted him- 
self to indulge in anything approaching humour when 
addressing an audience in public. There are many, I 
know, who assert that humour is just as much a gift o 
God as the other graces attributed to that source, an 
that it may quite legitimately be employed in His service 
I am not prepared to dispute the point ; I simply recor 
the fact that Dr. Pierson was a man of another mould, 
that he purposely and determinedly set his face against 
everything suggestive of levity in the pulpit or on th 
platform, that he discouraged laughter in a sacred service 
and that even applause was never welcome to him. 

On one occasion, I am told by one who was present, h 
addressed, on a Sunday morning, the boys of the Stock 
well Orphanage, giving them a lesson in natural history 
He pointed out first the lion, ready at once to devour 
then the wolf, waiting his chance ; then the fox, crafty 
not to be trusted ; the eagle ready to swoop down an 
devour the lamb after carrying it away. Then, afte 
asking the boys whether they ever entertained such 
feeling, he put the blunt question : " Do you ever fee 
that you have a whole menagerie inside you ? " Naturally 
a titter of laughter went round the youthful audience, no 
altogether to the speaker's liking, for he at once remarke 
that in all the years he had been trying to serve God h 
always avoided anything like laughter in His sacre 
house. What he always felt was this : that one could no 
be too careful in sowing the word, and that if peopl 
were tempted to laugh, the devil's birds would swoo 
down and carry away the sacred seed. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF A GREAT LIFE 63 



A man's humility is often the standard of his greatness, 
and it was certainly so in Dr. Pierson's case. He was 
grateful beyond measure when he could be of help to any 
one, but such service was never made the ground of 
boasting, for he realised, as all right-minded men must 
realise, that being nothing in himself he could only be 
made a blessing to others through God. He deprecated 
praise for the same reason, though always in a pleasant 
spirit. When in Wales, some years ago, a minister who 
had read many of his books and come under the spell of 
his spiritual influence and charming style, journeyed some 
miles to hear him preach, and upon telling Dr. Pierson 
this at a subsequent interview, he good-humouredly 
remarked, " I am afraid the hare is not worth the hunt." 

As has already been noted, Dr. Pierson was intimately 
associated with that wonderful man of prayer, George 
Miiller, and according to one of the doctor's friends, he 
had much of the same childlike faith and simplicity of 
character as the great founder of the Miiller orphanages. 
An incident which comes to the recollection of this friend 
shows this childlike quality in Dr. Pierson to perfection. 
" I was," he says, " travelling in his company from New 
York some years ago. Dr. Pierson was greatly interested 
in the conversation on the train, with the result that when 
he dismounted at a station an irate passenger rushed after 
him, claiming a handbag which Dr. Pierson had taken 
absent-mindedly 1 We all chaffed him, but there was 
more to follow. When the next change of stations 
occurred Dr. Pierson stood on the platform continuing his 
conversation ; but suddenly a lady darted up to him and 
snatched her umbrella from him ! After these laughable 
incidents we threatened to report him to Exeter Hall." 

This same simplicity was also marked in relation to 
money. Money in itself had no attraction for him. He 
told one of his friends that in the pastorate he filled before 



64 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



going to Philadelphia he had an income of about £2,00 
a year. One day he remarked to his wife, " These ar 
not healthy surroundings in which to bring up ou 
children," and being convinced of that he resigned his 
office, accepting another at £500 a year. Another of his 
friends tells me that Dr. Pierson agreed to spend three 
weeks or a month with him in Switzerland one summer, 
and he made arrangements accordingly, but appeals for 
help in Christian work led the Doctor to shorten his 
holiday to a week in the Lake District, and further appli- 
cations reduced this holiday to a day's walking excursion, 
which was not interrupted. The same friend had a 
similar experience with Dr. Pierson in the United States, 
and he mentions these incidents to illustrate the fact that 
he always sought first the Kingdom of God, that the 
cause of God was ever pre-eminent, and that he did not 
hesitate to sacrifice his own enjoyment — and incidentally 
the enjoyment of his friends — to the Master's service. 

Wonderfully susceptible to Divine influences, Dr. 
Pierson was never happier than when in an atmosphere 
warm with the Divine presence. At the Llandrindod 
Convention, in 1903, he was conscious of unusual power, 
and he then predicted that Wales was on the eve of a 
spiritual awakening, this being about fifteen months 
before the great Revival broke out. 

In 1905 he visited several centres of the " fire zone," 
and a ministerial friend who accompanied him on that 
occasion says that wherever he went he added fuel to the 
flame. 

Zealous as he was for the honour and the glory of God, 
and striving as he did to advance the Kingdom of his 
Lord, he was stirred to wrath by any and every effort 
to cast doubt on the Deity of Christ. Nothing could 
equal his scathing handling of those who belittled His 
Saviour. To see him stand upon a platform and to hear 



CHARACTERISTICS OF A GREAT LIFE 65 



him deal with the modern heresies that seek to strip 
Christ of His Deity was to have a vision of the ancient 
days when the prophets of God stood up to declare the 
Divine message. I have seen him when it seemed as if 
for a moment or two he was without words to express 
the sorrow and anger that filled his heart. But presently 
the words would come — come in such a torrent of 
righteous invective as to hush one into a solemn awe, for 
if ever he spoke in words of living fire it was when the 
trend of the time compelled him to champion the truths 
that were under attack and upon which the whole 
structure of Christianity is built. 

In so happened that early in 1907, just when the " New 
Theology " was making its vain bid for public favour, Dr. 
Pierson was due to deliver at Exeter Hall — for many 
years the leading place for religious gatherings in London, 
but now no longer in existence — another of those series 
of Bible lectures which never failed to draw large and 
appreciative audiences. Confident that some reference 
would be made to the question of the moment, a 
gathering that completely filled the historic building 
assembled in eager expectancy. Nor were they disap- 
pointed. " Men with their watering pots may try to put 
out the stars, but the stars shine on in celestial derision," 
said Dr. Pierson, in one of his opening sentences, as he 
proceeded to show the wonderful unity of the Bible, and 
to combat the theories of those who would tear from the 
Word of God its Divine character. 

" I tell you," he declared, speaking with eloquent and 
stirring passion, " it is a very solemn thing to be living in 
these times when the Church Missionary Society in India 
sends a protest and appeal to the whole Christian world 
to say that this Higher Criticism is undermining the 
faith of the converts in India, and undermining the 
power of the churches in India, and begging that this 

F 



66 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



demolition of Christian doctrine may cease — when one of 
your own greatest thinkers tells us that we are in a crisis 
to which there has been no parallel since the second 
century. I would to God that I had the brain of a 
Newton, the tongue of a Chrysostom, the heart of a 
Luther, and the martyr spirit of a Savonarola, I would 
like to go out and nail my theses to the doors of All 
Saints' Church and All Sinners' Synagogue, and wait, 
like Luther, for any proper refutation to the theses that 
set forth the fact that this book is a mirror of God and a 
mirror of man. And before this great Exeter Hall is 
demolished, or passes into other hands for possible secular 
uses, I would to God there might be one more 
GBcumenical Council called in this hall, that from all 
over the world the scarred veterans of modern conflict 
might come, as the scarred veterans of the original 
persecutions came to the Council of Nice in 325, when 
the Emperor Constantine presided, and when the great 
doctrine of the Deity of Christ was defined. I would to 
God we might have one more (Ecumenical Conference 
in this great Exeter Hall, and let us with unanimous 
voice show the modern Church and the unbelieving world 
that there are thousands and tens of thousands of 
believers that still believe in the inspiration of this Book 
and the Divinity of Christ, and who accept without 
hesitation the miraculous birth of Christ, the miraculous 
resurrection of Christ, and the all-sufficiency of His 
atoning blood. Let us rise to the greatness of the 
occasion and mightily unite for the imperilled truths of 
the only faith that has ever brought consolation to man 
in this life of preparation for the life to come." 

A week or two after making this declaration, Dr. 
Pierson spoke at the two great meetings held in the 
Cannon Street Hotel to protest against the " New 
Theology " and the Higher Criticism. There again he 



CHARACTERISTICS OF A GREAT LIFE 67 



rose to the occasion, never for a moment resorting to 
personalities, but handling the whole question in its effect 
both upon the Church of Christ and the unconverted 
world. 

Of a peculiarly sensitive nature, Dr. Pierson was most 
appreciative of any kindness or attention shown to him 
or his. As an illustration of this trait in his character I 
may quote the words of a minister who writes me as 
follows : " Once after ministering for some months at 
Christ Church, Westminster Bridge Road, he came direct 
to Chester to preach for us. He and his had been loaded 
with presents, and evidently touched by the appreciation 
of his services. He seemed as proud of the gifts as a 
bride of her wedding present, and was as sensitive to the 
love and the goodwill behind them. Here is a specimen 
letter bearing out what is said of the great man's sweet 
appreciativeness of every little attention : * My Dear 
Brother, My daughters have just arrived, and are full of 
enthusiasm over your most loving and considerate care of 
them and thoughtfulness for their comfort. All this we 
appreciate as truly as they. May I only say that if at 
any time before my return I can do you any service, you 
have only to say so and command me. My memories of 
your kind personal attentions to me are now enriched by 
similar consideration to my bairns, whom I charged to 
find you out in Chester. — Faithfully Yours, with much 
regard for the dear wife, Arthur T. Pierson.' " 

To Dr. Pierson the home was, indeed, a sanctuary, and 
there he loved and was loved in return in a manner 
beautiful to behold. He had the joy of seeing all his 
children come to the Lord and engage in His work. He 
held, and held strongly, that to Christian parents is given 
the privilege of leading their children to the Saviour's 
feet, and he was altogether without sympathy with the 
modern practice of sending boys and girls from home at 



68 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



an early age. On this subject he spoke with much 
emphasis at the Mildmay Conference in 1907. Such a 
practice he denounced as pernicious, vicious, and 
destructive. " I feel tremendously in earnest about it," he 
said. " I have seen over and over again young children 
of fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen come home 
from schools and universities having cut loose from every- 
thing that their father and mother believed before them. 
All this they learned in boarding schools, and in colleges 
and universities, where oftentimes sceptical teachers are 
put in charge of the children." And then he added this 
personal touch to his address: "One of the foremost 
officers of one of my churches sent his boy to the 
university in the same year that I sent my daughter — 
who is now in Japan and has been there for seventeen 
years as a missionary — to the best Christian school that 
I knew. This man sent his boy to a university where he 
knew that one of the professors proclaimed atheism in 
his classes. His boy came back virtually an atheist, and 
my daughter came back consecrated to missions." 

In his home, as everywhere else, Dr. Pierson put God 
first and sought to honour Him in all that He did. 

That is the memory and the example he has left to 
—a memory and an example well worth treasuring an 
emulating. 



Dr. Pierson : His Message 



Selected from unpublished 
material representative of a 
Fifty Years' Faithful and 
Fruitful Ministry 



I 



The Gospel in Miniature 

" If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink." — 
John vii. 37. 

r I ^HIS is the gospel in one sentence. We might 



almost say that if the entire gospel according 



JL to John, and even the companion gospel 
narratives of Matthew and Mark and Luke, should, 
in some mysterious way, disappear from among the 
children of men and this one sentence should remain, 
it might serve to guide penitent and believing souls unto 
salvation. " If any man thirst, let him come unto Me 
and drink." Luther said that there were scattered all 
through the Bible little gospels. He referred to such 
sentences as that in Habakkuk : " The just shall live by 
his faith," and to such as that in John iii., 16: " God 
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son 
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but 
should have everlasting life"; and to that other little 
gospel in Titus : " The grace of God that bringeth salva- 
tion hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that deny- 
ing ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live 
soberly, righteously and godly in this present world." 

If there be many little gospels within the compass of 
the Word of God, this is one of the most precious and 
the most significant of them all. It reminds us of the 
works of God which, the more you examine them, the 
more perfect they appear. If you take the works of 




72 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



man the more you examine them the more you discover 
imperfection ; but if you put the works of God under 
the highest magnifying power of the microscope, the 
more closely you look at them the more absolutely per- 
fect they appear to be. And so the more closely you 
look at the words of God the more you will see evidence 
that they could only have been spoken by those who were 
taught of the Spirit of God. 

Suppose we take this verse, which might be called the 
gospel in miniature: " If any man thirst, let him come 
unto Me and drink." The three leading words of this 
text are " thirst," " come," " drink." See the order of 
them and see how complete they make the gospel mes- 
sage when they are presented in this order. " Thirst " 
is a w T orcJ that has to do with appetite or longing. 
" Come " is a word that has to do with approaching. 
" Drink " is a word that represents appropriating or 
making one's own. So we have here in this little gospel 
— this gospel in a sentence — the three conditions of sal- 
vation : first, an appetite or longing after Jesus ; secondly, 
an approach or voluntary coming to Christ ; and, third, 
appropriation, the acceptance or claiming as my own of 
what Christ represents. So I think that this is a very 
simple and very beautiful passage, in which the whole 
gospel is declared. 

" If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." 
We read here that these words were spoken on the last 
great day of the Feast of Tabernacles. You remember 
in connection with the Feast of Tabernacles there was a 
ceremony observed on the morning of each day. When 
the victim was laid on the altar at the time of morning 
sacrifice, the priests went down through the gate in the 
wall to the Pool of Siloam, and there dipped their golden 
vessels in the water and brought it up and poured it over 
the sacrifice, and then tha* 3rd verse of the 12th chapter 



THE GOSPEL IN MINIATURE 73 



of Isaiah was chanted, " With joy shall ye draw water 
from the wells of salvation." This ceremony was in- 
tended to bring to the minds of the children of God their 
journey in the desert, when they were thirsty and their 
soul failed them for the agony of their desire for water, 
and when in the dry desert sands, with the hot sun 
blistering their feet, and causing the blood to flow like 
fever through their veins, they cried unto God and unto 
Moses, the representative of God, and God, seeing the 
distress of His people, told Moses what to do, and out 
of the rock which Moses smote there came a stream of 
water, and they filled their vessels and satisfied their 
thirst ; and, what is still more remarkable, that flow from 
the rock was not a flow that stopped when the immediate 
wants of the people were met, but it made a river that 
flowed along the same course that they were pursuing. 
Paul refers to this when he says " that rock that followed 
them, and that rock was Christ." The rock poured 
forth this stream, and the stream flowed aiong the desert 
sand in the same direction that the people were travel- 
ling, so that as they wandered along through these 
wilderness paths the water followed them and supplied 
their daily need. Now such a great event as this, an 
event so stupendous, must have a memorial in the Feast 
of Tabernacles, when they all abode in tents to keep 
themselves in memory of how the Lord guided them 
through the forty years in the wilderness; and every 
morning this ceremony was repeated. Now when the 
last great day of the feast came, and these ceremonies 
were about to close for a year, Christ came and stood, 
undoubtedly near to the altar, and cried aloud so that 
the whole multitude could hear Him, " If any man thirst 
let him come unto Me and drink." " If any of you are 
thirsty," He said, "lam the rock, and out of Me flows 
the living water to satisfy all your wants." 



74 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



I. 

Now take that word " thirst." Everybody under- 
stands it. There are two appetites that are especially 
strong and especially depressing when they are dissatis- 
fied or unsatisfied. One is hunger and the other is thirst. 
Whether hunger or thirst causes the greater agony I 
suppose no one can tell, but each of them represents a 
hunger so exquisite that no human language will 
describe it. Yet I suppose that if there is in either case 
a greater distress than in the other, it is in the case of 
thirst. A story is told of a king of Thrace who, on one 
occasion, when he was travelling with the agony of such 
intense thirst that he could not longer endure, bartered 
his entire kingdom for a draught of water. He sacri- 
ficed the empire over which he reigned for the temporary 
satisfaction of quenching his thirst. 

" If any man thirst." That word " thirst " can mean 
nothing else than a need, and a conscious need. The 
first thing that is of necessity in the case of the sinner 
coming to Christ is to feel his need of Jesus. To make 
men feel this need is the hardest thing that a minister 
of Christ has to do. I think that it may be reverently 
said to be the first work and the most difficult work that 
the Spirit of God has to perform in leading sinners to 
Christ — to awaken a conscious need. There is a con- 
scious need already that does not need to be awakened, 
but to awaken a conscious need of Christ, to show a 
sinner that the need of which he is conscious can be 
met and supplied in no other way than by Jesus — ah 1 
that is the master accomplishment of the Spirit of God. 
Socrates used to say that his work in the city of Athens 
was to bring men from ignorance unconscious to ignor- 
ance conscious, or, to put the matter in his own language 
as nearly as possible, he said of other men in Athens, 



THE GOSPEL IN MINIATURE 75 



" They know nothing and do not know it. I know 
nothing and do know it, and my work is to show men 
that they do not know anything " — to lead on to the 
knowledge of their own lack of knowledge. The Holy 
Spirit is the Socrates of the world, in this respect, that 
His peculiar office is to bring men from their ignorance 
unconscious to their ignorance conscious, to show men 
that they are needy, and that they are needy with regard 
to Jesus. 

The word " thirst " here is also to be noticed specially 
because it represents a natural need and not an artificial 
need. There are a great many of our needs that are not 
natural. Sometimes we cultivate a habit for certain 
things which at first disgusted us. We have no relish 
for them. A great many of what we call our cravings 
are cravings for which we have ourselves to be respon - 
sible. We begin by disliking a thing which afterwards 
we crave. I suppose that the appetite for strong drink 
is not a natural habit. There may be some children 
born of drunkards that come into this world with a kind 
of natural longing for drink; but these are exceptions. 
A healthy child has a distaste for strong drink. A 
healthy child has a distaste for tobacco or opium, and if 
there be an appetite for any of these things it must be 
an appetite which has been cultivated. It is not natural 
to us. But thirst is a natural appetite — an appetite that 
comes with our being. It is one of the conditions of our 
being that we shall thirst, and there is only one thing 
that can satisfy thirst, and that is water. And so this 
thirst represents a universal as well as a conscious need 
and a natural need. 

It is a need of all men. There never was a man or a 
woman or a child that lived on earth and knew nothing 
of the craving of thirst; and there is not any necessity 
for an argument to prove that only one thing will meet 



?6 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D< 



that peculiar longing, and it is that which, by God, was 
designed and fitted to meet that need. So witW regard 
to Jesus Christ. The first condition of salvation is that 
you shall recognise your need of Christ and His fitness 
to supply your need. 

II. 

Now if your thirst is awakened, if your conscious need 
troubles you, and if you recognise in that need a want 
which only Jesus Christ can supply, then the next step 
is to come unto Him. Everybody knows what the word 
' 1 come ' ' means, as everybody knows what the word 
" thirst " means. " Come " is the simplest word in our 
Saxon language to express our approach to an object or 
to a person. " If any man has the conscious need and 
the felt want, then let that man come to Me." The will 
is exercised in the coming. How do you come? You 
take a step, another step, and still another, until the 
distance is shortened between you and the object or the 
person that you seek, and until the distance has finally 
passed away. How do you come to Christ? You take 
a step in the direction of Christ. And how do you take 
a step ? Every step is the effect of a will. You may not 
be conscious at the time that you are making a will, or a 
choice, or a decision, but you cannot take a step without 
an act of the will. A man that is paralysed finds out 
how much the will has to do with the steps, for although 
now he wills to step he cannot step, because the muscles 
and the nerves cannot obey the will, and he comes, per- 
haps for the first time, to realise what a mighty power 
the will is when the muscles and the nerves and the 
tendons are obedient to the voice of the will. 

Now how do you come to Christ? By willing to 
approach Him, by taking a step in the direction in which 
Jesus Christ appears to you through the gospel and by 



THE GOSPEL IN MINIATURE 77 



the Holy Spirit ; not that you actually take a step in the 
direction of Jesus Christ, as you will all understand, but 
that you exercise your will in obedience to what the 
gospel demands, and the call which Jesus Christ sounds 
in your ear; that you do in your mind and in your heart 
and in your will what you would do with your feet if 
Jesus Christ were standing near you and were saying, 
" Come unto Me." 

Now notice that it is unto Christ that you are bidden 
to come. He does not say " Come to the church " or 
I* the chapel." He does not say, " Come to the Word 
of God " even, important as that is. He does not say, 
"Come to the prayer meeting" or "to the baptismal 
font," or " Come to the Lord's table " — none of these 
things. He says, " Come unto Me." He does not say 
" Come to a priest " or " to a minister," or " to a fellow- 
man," or "to the best of men," but " Come unto Me." 
The Church may be the way to Christ, provided it exalts 
Jesus. The Word may be the way to Christ provided 
you search it to find Jesus Christ. The baptismal font 
and the Lord's table and the prayer meeting may be 
means by whicb Christ comes into closer relationship 
and fellowship with you, but if through all these things 
you do not find Jesus, it is a failure. Suppose that I 
were trying to show you Jupiter and his moons, and 
here is a telescope set up, the object glass being turned 
toward Jupiter and the eye-piece toward you. Now I 
say, "Come and look through this eye-piece of the 
telescope and you shall see Jupiter with his moons re- 
volving round him " ; and you come and stand and look 
at the telescope. You admire the structure of the eye- 
piece and the beauty of the whole piece of mechanism. 
You speak of the brightness of the polished brass and 
the elegance of the wheels and all the apparatus by which 
the telescope is turned in this or that direction ; and 



78 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



especially do you admire the delicacy by which it is hung 
so that an infant's hand might suffice to turn the monster 
instrument around. But you never would see Jupiter 
and his moons by looking at the telescope. It is through i 
the telescope that you must look if you want to see the 
stars. And if you come and look at the Church and her 
sacraments and her ordinances, if you take up the pre- 
cious Word of God and look at that, if you look at a 
minister of Jesus Christ or at the whole body of believing I 
disciples, it may all be well, provided that through them 
you see Jesus ; but if your eye rests on them and goes no 
farther, they are a snare to you and not a help. 

I have had young men come to me and ask what they 
shall do to be saved, and I have tried to show them the ■ 
way of salvation, and I have said, u Well, how do you 
feel about yourself? " One young man once said to me, 
" I think I am getting to be a saved man." " How is I 
that ? " " Why, I have been baptised, and I have gone 
to the Lord's Table, and I have been confirmed in an 
Episcopal church, and I think if I keep on this way, by 
and by I will get to be saved." " Well,*' I said, " my ! 
dear sir, I am afraid you are in the gall of bitterness and 
the bond of iniquity. I am afraid that you have not yet 
found out what salvation is. Salvation is not baptism, 
it is not the Lord's Supper, it is not joining a church, it 
is not reading your Bible, it is not praying to God." 
What is it? It is accepting Jesus Christ as my Saviour 
and Lord; and when I have done that, all these other 
acts become means of grace and helps to holy living ; but 
if my eye rests on these things and goes no farther, 
they become like a golden veil that hides prospects, 
heavenly and divine, from my eyes. 

So I would repeat, do not look at the telescope, but 
look through it. The Church is an exquisitely con- 
structed instrument, but it is an instrument to bring 



THE GOSPEL IN MINTATURE 



heaven nearer and Christ nearer. If you do not look 
through it at the Christ and get to Him, the Church 
is, as far as you are concerned, a failure. "Come 
unto Me " — not unto a creed. He is not going to save 
you because you repeat the Apostles' creed, or because 
you learn the Westminster Confession, or the Con- 
fession of the Synod of Dort, or the Thirty-nine Articles. 
Salvation does not come by a creed. It comes by the 
Christ, and the creed is only to help you to appreciate 
what the Word of God teaches about the Christ, and so 
conduct your weary feet to the Lamb of God that takes 
away the sin of the world. 

If you have felt your conscious need and that has been 
turned into a conscious want, and you know that Christ 
only can fill it as the water only can quench thirst, and 
if you have sought to take a step towards Jesus according 
to the way which is indicated in the Word of God; if 
you have begun by sorrowing for your sin, which is 
the first step, and then, having sorrowed for your sin, 
put it away, which is the second step ; and then if, having 
put your sin away, you have trusted in Jesus for His 
atoning grace and for His all-sufficient love, which is 
the third step, then you want to confess Him and follow 
Him in a holy obedience, and fulfil all righteousness, and 
so, step by step, get nearer and nearer to Him, and the 
life He represents and would have you exemplify and 
represent. 

III. 

There is a third word to which I have made almost no 
reference, and that is " drink." It is perfectly obvious 
to us that if a river of water flowed through the very 
midst of a city and there were thirsty people dying of 
thirst in every direction, that river, with all its flood of 
waters, would not do good to anybody who did not drink 
of it, Provision provides, but it does not fee3. Provi- 



8o ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



sion supplies, but it does not satisfy. There must be 
something besides the provision and the readiness and 
the abundance. There must be the appropriation, the 
making mine. It is a wonderful fact about the constitu- 
tion of our bodies that the moment we take food into 
the stomach — nay, the moment we take it into the mouth 
and begin to chew it, we begin to make that food our 
own. It passes through a strange process that we call 
mastication, by which certain fluids that are in the mouth 
and in the glands beneath the tongue and on each side 
of the throat are poured into the mouth and mixed with 
the food; and then when it goes into the stomach, juices 
supplied by the stomach, liver, etc., helped by the other 
processes of digestion, serve to make that food, as we 
say, digest. 

Now, what is digestion ? Digestion is taking out of 
food material for blood and bone and brain and sinew 
and muscle ; that is to say, it is taking dead matter and 
turning it into living matter. It is taking a dead particle ! 
of flesh or fowl or fish or bread, or whatever it may be, 
and turning that dead particle into a living atom in i 
the blood, or in the brain, or in the muscle. So you see 
that we make our own the food which we eat, if we 
properly digest it, and it becomes part and parcel of us. 
Oh, is not this beautiful? " If any man thirst, let Him 
come unto Me and drink." If you drink, you make 
Christ yours. He who was outside of you before, now 
becomes part and parcel of your life, like the bread you 
eat, like the water you drink, like the air you breathe. 
That which was dead to you before as being foreign to 
you, and outside of you, becomes life and strength and 
vigour and joy to you, because you take it into yourself 
and make it your own. You say to Him who was 
simply God outside of you, " My God." You say to 
what was a refuge outside of you, " My refuge." You 



ttiE G6sp£l In MINIATURE ii 



say to a fortress that was a stronghold that you iooked 
at, " My stronghold." Now, when does a man make a 
stronghold his own? When He goes inside of it. 
It is then his refuge, his stronghold, his high tower, 
because though he was formerly outside, he is now inside 
and he claims for it the refuge and protection which 
that stronghold or fortress supplies. 

Oh, how simple and how plain this is. " If any man 
thirst." There is conscious need and conscious want. 
"Let him come." There is conscious voluntary 
approach. " Let him come unto Me " — a person : not 
a creed, nor a church, nor an ordinance, nor a sacrament, 
nor even the inspired Word of God, but the person of 
Jesus Christ. "And drink"; that is, take and make 
your own. When Christ instituted the Last Supper, 
when He put before the disciples the bread and the cup, 
He said, "Take, eat. Take, drink." The bread was 
there, but it did not become part and parcel of them till 
they took it and ate it. The cup was there, but it did 
not become part and parcel of them till they took it and 
drank it. Christ is there. Now understand. You 
may feel your need, and you may be conscious of your 
want, and you may take a step toward Christ, but if 
you do not take Christ, if you do not appropriate Christ 
as much as you appropriate the water that you drink, 
or the bread that you eat, He will never be a Saviour 
to you. He can never be a Saviour to you as long as 
He is looked upon as somebody outside of you. He 
must become in you the life of God and God Himself 
dwelling in you ; and then He will give strength to 
your spiritual nerve; and He will become a flow of 
power to your blood; He will become strength to your 
spiritual muscle, and He will become the force of your 
spiritual brain. Your whole spiritual life will be 
nourished and cherished by Jesus living in you. 

G 



S2 ARTHUR T. PIERSONY D.D. 



I want, in conclusion, just to indicate two or three 
other facts bearing on this subject. 

In the first place, I want you to notice that while we 
often say, with a great amount of truth, that the invita- 
tions of the gospel are universal, in a sense they are not 
universal. 11 Come unto Me all ye that labour and are 
heavy laden." That is an invitation limited to the 
weary and the heavy laden. " If any man thirst, let 
him come unto me and drink." There is an invitation 
limited to those that are thirsty. Jesus Christ does not 
invite everybody. He invites people that need Him and 
want Him and feel their need and feel their want, because 
to all others the invitation might as well be pronounced 
when the ear was deaf. You might as well try to illus- 
trate to a deaf man the magnificent anthems and the 
instrumental music of a great orchestra as to make a 
sinner come to Jesus who had no conscious need, no con- 
scious want. It is those that are weary that He calls, 
and the more weary the more desirous He is to offer rest. 
It is those that are thirsty that Christ saves; and the 
intenser the thirst the more ready He is to pour the river 
of living water into the heart and into the life. So the 
invitation of the gospel is limited, but, blessed be God, 
it includes all those who feel their need of Jesus Christ, 
for, 

All the fitness He requireth 
Is to feel your need of Him. 

Then another fact that I want to emphasise is that 
faith is a courageous principle of life. There is a daring 
about faith, a sort of desperate daring. When the Jews 
were liable, all of them, to be destroyed, and Mordecai 
said to Esther, " Perhaps thou art come to the kingdom 
for such a time as this," Esther felt the awful extremity, 
and although she had not been called to come into the 
king for days and weeks, she said, " I will go in unto 



THE GOSPEL IN MINIATURE §3 



the king, and if I perish, I perish." And that wonder- 
ful historical incident is found illustrated in the beautiful 
hymn : — 

I can but perish if I go, 

I am resolved to try ; 
For if I stay away I know 

I must for ever die. 

There is a great deal of false humility. " Oh," people 
say, " I do need Jesus, and I feel my need and I would 
come to Jesus, but I am so unworthy." Well, I 
would like to know whom Jesus came to save but the 
unworthy. He says, "The Son of man came to seek 
and to save that which was lost." Now, men cannot be 
any worse than lost, and if they are lost and feel them- 
selves lost, they are the very souls that, according to His 
own conditions, invitation, and promise, He came to 
save. " I came," He said, " not to call the righteous. 
The righteous do not need to be called. I came to call 
sinners to repentance." If you will read the seventh 
chapter of Luke you will see Eow the woman that 
anointed Christ's feet and wiped them with the hair of 
her head was all the more welcomed by the Lord because 
she had great sins to be forgiven, and she loved in pro- 
portion to the sins that were forgiven. And if you will 
read the story of the prodigal in the 15th of Luke, you 
will find that it was when the prodigal, who had gone 
into the far country, had wasted all his substance and had 
not anything left, had worn his clothes into rags an 1 
had not a decent garment, had been distressed by famine 
and sold himself to a citizen of the country, and had 
gone into the fields to feed swine, which the Jews 
accounted an abhorrent occupation, and could not even 
get the husks upon which the swine had been accustomed 
to feed, and nobody gave anything to him to keep life 
in his body — it was then that he rose and went to his 



8 4 Arthur t. pIeRSOn, d.d. 



father. Did his father reproach him for coming home 
when he had no alternative? Did his father reproach 
him with his rags, with his unkempt person, with his 
deep poverty and misery, with his penniless condition ? 
No, his father received him with open arms, a kiss, a 
robe, a ring, shoes, and a fatted calf. 

And so I say, there is a certain daring about faith, a 
desperate daring. You can do nothing for yourself ; your 
fellow-man can do nothing for you ; and the law gives 
you no help. There is a broken cistern that can hold no , 
water in whatever way you turn. But here is the fount of 
living waters. Your thirst is very great, is it? Then 
that fount is all the more for you. Your disease is such 
that no physician can heal it, is it? Then the great 
Physician, with the balm of Gilead, is all the more for 
you. You are absolutely lost and cannot find your way, 
are you ? Then the light of the world is all the more for 
you. You are so hungry that you are in a deadly 
hunger ? Then the bread of life is for you. You are so 
thirsty that nothing can express your agonies? Then 
the water of life is for you. Be courageous about it. 
Be daring about it. Be desperate enough. Pass by all 
pretended human merit and come away from everything 
that pretends to give you aid, to Him who is the only 
pole star of the soul. Remember that not your merit 
but your misery was the magnet that drew Jesus down 
from the skies, as Thomas Guthrie used to say. Remem- 
ber that the fact that you are a lost man and that nobody 
can save you but Christ is the one thing that attracts 
Jesus to come and be your Saviour. 



II 



Vicarious Dying 



" For Christ also hath once suffered for sin, the just for the 
unjust, that He might bring us to God." — 1 Peter iii. 18. 

r | "■HERE are some great first truths which lie at 



the bottom of every science and every depart- 



JL ment of human learning, just as foundation 
stones lie at the bottom of a structure, just as pillars 
sustain an arch, and you can never master a subject 
until these first principles are thoroughly understood. 
The importance of a few great primary facts and 
primary truths in the formation of character, and in the 
determination of destiny, cannot possibly be overstated. 
The fact is that the great mass of human beings can only 
take in primary truths. The simplest facts are all that 
are apprehended by the great bulk of people, and the 
simplest truths are all that the average human mind is 
able to grasp ; and even the greatest, the wisest, the most 
learned, after they have gone through with their specula- 
tions, after they have wandered round the whole course 
of wide and varied studies, come back to the first great 
principles as something on which to rest. All else may 
be uncertain and insecure, like shifting sancl. Men 
to-day form an opinion which they abandon to-morrow. 
They propose a conjecture to-day, a theory to-day, which 
proves to be unworthy of confidence to-morrow. Systems 
of philosophy have arisen in the world, and they have 
fallen into ruin. Sciences have projected what they have 




86 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



supposed to be ascertained truths, and they have prov 
to be ascertained errors. And so we all have to co 
back at last to the rock-basis of certain great prima 
truths that cannot be disputed or denied. 

There are four words in the First Epistle of Peter th 
I think without hesitation we may say are the four most 
important words put together in the Bible : " He bare 
our sin." If you can find any other sentence of four 
words in the entire Bible that is more important to 
sinners and saints than those four words, you can do 
more than I can. The 53rd chapter of Isaiah is the 
central chapter in the greatest poem that man has ever 
written under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. 
There are 27 chapters in that prophecy that are occupied 
with Christ, from the 40th to the 66th, and among those 
27 chapters the exact centre is the 53rd, as you will 
readily see, and the centre of the 53rd chapter is those 
four words, "He bare our iniquity." The soul of the 
whole prophecy is in those four words, and, as that 
prophecy constitutes the soul of the Old Testament, tHe 
soul of the Old Testament is in those words. When 
John the Baptist came, preceding the Christ, the last 
and greatest of the prophets, who in himself and his 
message summed up all that the prophets had spoken, 
he said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
prepare ye the way of the Lord." The greatest of the 
sons of men was content to be nothing but a finger point- 
ing and a voice proclaiming, " Behold the Lamb of God 
which taketh away the sin of the world." He taught 
three great truths, a day of judgment coming, a Messiah 
coming, and a sacrifice for sin when the Messiah came — 
three fundamental truths. The four greatest truths of 
the Bible are the fact of sin, the fact of judgment, the 
fact of a coming Christ, and the fact of a completed 
atonement when He came. Those four words, " He bare 



VICARIOUS DYING 



87 



our sin," the substance of Isaiah's prophecy, the soul of 
the Old Testament, the substance of all John the Bap- 
tist's message, the substance of all the gospels, the sub- 
stance of all the epistles, the substance of all the Book of 
Revelation, I say again are the most important four 
words put together in the Word of God. 

In studying this theme I found that there were seven 
passages in the New Testament, all of which contain 
these words, or almost exactly the same words ; for it is 
one of the marks of a fundamental truth that you have 
to repeat it in various forms in order to impress it. That 
is what God has done in the Bible. Seeing that these 
four words are so immensely important that thev lie 
under the whole system of Christianity, the hope of 
sinners and the hope of saints, He puts them together 
over and over again in the New Testament in very 
slightly different forms, but in the same thought 
precisely. 

First of all, I want to give you these seven passages. 
The passage before us is the first of them. " For Christ 
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, 
that he might bring us to God." The second passage 
is in the 9th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, at 
the 28th verse : <{ So Christ was once offered to bear the 
sins of many ; and unto them that look for Him shall He 
appear the second time, without sin unto salvation." 
The third passage is in the 2nd Corinthians, 5th chapter, 
21st verse : *He hath made Him who knew no sin to be 
sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of 
God in Him." This is another verse expressing the 
same thought. The next passage is in the 1st Peter, 
2nd chapter, and 24th verse " 'Who His own self bare 
our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead 
to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes 
we are healed." The next passage is in Titus, the 2nd 



8S ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



chapter and 14th verse : " Who gave Himself for us, that 
He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify us unto 
Himself, a peculiar people, zealous of good works." 
The same thought. Then in Galatians, the 1st chapter 
and the 4th verse : " Who gave Himself for our sins, that 
He might deliver us from this present evil world," or, 
properly, "this present evil age." "Gave Himself for 
our sins " ; five words, but the same thought. The other 
is in the 1st Peter, 2nd chapter and 21st verse : " Christ 
also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye 
should follow His steps." The same thought. 

Not only have we these seven passages, but no two 
passages go over the same ground. 1 wish you to notice 
the exact similarity of the language used to express the 
effects of Christ's work. "He bare our sin." "Made 
sin for us." "Bare the sins of many." "He once 
suffered for sin." "Gave Himself for us." "Gave 
Himself for our sins." "Suffered for us." There are 
the seven statements, very brief, about the character 
of Christ's substitution and vicarious work. But all the 
rest of these passages is dissimilar. For instance, "He 
who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might 
be made the righteousness of God in Him." "He bare 
our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being 
dead to sins should live unto righteousness, by whose 
stripes ye were healed." " He once suffered for sins, the 
just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." 
"He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from 
all iniquity, and purify us unto Himself a peculiar 
people." "Gave Himself for our sins, that He might 
deliver us from this present evil age." "Suffered for 
us, leaving us an example." So, while we have the 
seven statements, as I have said, almost exactly similar, 
and almost exactly in the same language, the results of 



VICARIOUS DYING 



89 



Christ's work are expressed in seven different forms. 
Suppose we take these passages in order. 

"Once offered to bear the sins of many " : what does 
that call to our attention ? There was a great day called 
the Day of Atonement, of which we read in the 16th 
chapter of the Book of Leviticus. On that great day of 
atonement that which was represented to the people in a 
kind of pictorial form was the taking away of sin. There 
were two kids, one slain, the other led by the hand of a 
fit man into the desert place, away from the camp. The 
kid that was slain represented the guilt of sin put away 
by blood. The kid that was led away into the desert 
place, never more to appear before the camp and bring 
back the thought of their sins to the people, represented 
the memory of sin being put away, the remembrance of 
sin being put away, so that it was no longer an occasion 
of interrupted intercourse and communion with God. 

The expression " bare the sins of many " is the very 
expression used about the kid that was slain and the kid 
that was led out into the desert place. Christ was offered 
to bear the sins of many. That text calls back the day 
of atonement. It tells us that what these two kids repre- 
sented the Christ fulfilled. His blood puts away guilt: 
His intercession removes even the sense of sin from 
between us and God. 

The scapegoat was never to come back to bring the 
sins of the people to remembrance. But our scapegoat 
is coming back. "To them that look for Him will He 
appear the second time, without sin unto salvation." 
He is coming back, not to bring our sins to our remem- 
brance, but to bring us a full and perfect salvation, such 
as we never can have until He returns to bring it to us 
and fulfil all the promises of the word. 

Take the second passage, "made sin for us." "He 
who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be 



9 o 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



made the righteousness of God in Him." Here are two 

very strongly contrasted words. One is " sin," the other 
is "righteousness"; and the expression, "made sin," 
calls to our mind the sin offering and the trespass 
offering. There were five offerings of which we read in 
Leviticus. One was the burnt offering; then the meat 
offering; and then the thank offering; and then there 
were the sin offering and the trespass offering. The sin 
offering and the trespass offering were offered for sin 
and trespass, and those offerings were regarded as un- 
clean. They were burnt to ashes, without the camp. 
Now, Jesus Christ was " made sin " — not a sin offering 
simply. He was counted as sin, and He was dealt with 
as sin by God in judgment. That constituted the atone- 
ment. He took the place of sinners, and He took the 
place of their sin before God. And now He had 
righteousness that was infinite, and here is an exchange. 
Our sin He takes. His righteousness we take. There 
is change of place. The righteous man takes the sin- 
ner's place; the sinner takes the righteous man's place. 
God looks on the righteous man as a sinner, and visits 
Him with penalty. God looks on the sinner as righteous 
and visits him with blessing and approval. What does 
that call to our mind ? As I have said, the sin offering 
and the trespass offering. Jesus Christ, in being made 
the righteousness of God unto us, that we might in Him 
become the righteousness of God, recalls to us all those 
offerings that were made for the sins and the trespasses 
of God's people. 

What is the next passage ? He " suffered for us, the 
just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God." 
To bring us unto God is to present us as acceptable, and 
the idea is that once we could not come near to God 
because we were filthy and vile, and God could not look 
upon us with any complacency or forbearance. '"Thou 



VICARIOUS DYING 



91 



art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look 
upon iniquity." So we were far off. Christ brought us 
nigh. Read that passage in Ephesians : " W e who some 
time were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." 
What does that recall ? Why, the laws of cleansing in 
Leviticus. For instance, take the laws about the leper. 
A leper was a walking parable of death and judgment. 
Leprosy was not simply regarded by the Jews as a 
disease ; it was regarded as the curse of God. When 
Miriam offended God she was smitten with leprosy, and 
was shut out of the camp seven days. When Uzziah 
went into the temple of God, and his heart was lifted up 
in arrogance and rebellion, and he seized the censer to 
burn incense, and resisted the remonstrance of the priest 
and would not go out of the temple, God smote him with 
leprosy in the forehead. The priests wore on the fore- 
head the forefront of the mitre, with the sentence, " Holi- 
ness to the Lord " ; and so, because he had undertaken 
to do the office of a priest without having the right to 
do it, God, instead of "Holiness to the Lord," wrote the 
curse of God on his forehead, in the pale, livid hue of 
leprosy; and he saw that God had smitten him, and He 
hasted to go out, and he dwelt to the day of his death in 
a separate house. 

Now, you see there the curse of God. A leper 
represented the curse, of God in a human form, 
warning men of uncleanness, bidding them to keep away 
from him lest they should be defiled, tiving in a separate 
house, having no relations with clean people, not coming 
into contact with clean people, being obliged to cry out, 
"Unclean," and to carry a stick when he went anywhere 
to keep people away who might, perhaps, not hear His 
cry. The leper represents the sinner, cursed of God, 
bearing the curse of God on his forehead, w r alking 
through the midst of men, as I have said, a parable of 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



death and judgment. Now, just as the leper when he 

was cleansed was examined by the priest, so that he who i 
had been shut out of the camp, being cleansed, might 
be allowed to come near and do holy service, Jesus Christ 
takes the leper of sin, and takes away his guilt, and 
removes the curse of God from him, and leads him up 
near God; so that, as the first of these representations 
brought to our mind the day of atonement, with the two 
slain kids, and as the second representation brought to 
our mind the sin offering and the trespass offering, with 
the exchange of places between the victim and the sinner, 
this brings to our mind the law of cleansing in Leviticus, 
and shows us that Christ fulfils the cleansing which is 
prescribed for the leper from whom God has removed 
the curse. 

The next of these passages is, "He bare our sins in 
His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, 
should live unto righteousness." What additional idea 
is conveyed here? Before, we had "made sin for us, 
that we might be made the righteousness of God in 
Him " ; but here there is something more than that. 
Here is death to sin, and life to righteousness. What 
does this recall ? I have spoken of those other three 
offerings that were distinguished from the sin offering 
and the trespass offering, because they were called sweet 
savour offerings. The sin and the trespass offerings 
were supposed to be burnt to ashes, and to have no sweet 
savour in the nostrils of God ; but in the case of the burnt 
offering, the greatest of all the sweet savour offerings, 
when it is described as being burnt the Hebrew language 
uses another word. The word translated "burnt" in 
this case means to ascend in flame. The flame of the 
sin offering and the trespass offering was supposed to 
go downward ; and the flame of the sweet savour offering 
was supposed to go upward and bear its incense to God ; 



VICARIOUS bYlNC 93 



so that, while the burnt offering was actually burnt on 
the altar, it was supposed to have risen to God, not to 
have been turned into ashes, but to have risen to God. 
There is an old tradition, which very likely is true, that 
the way that God expressed his pleasure in Abel's offer- 
ing was that the flame ascended, and that the way that 
He expressed His displeasure with Cain's offering was 
that the flame descended. But, whether that be true or 
not, the Jew always regarded the sin and the trespass 
offerings as offerings rejected, identified with sin, and 
the burnt offering as an accepted offering identified with 
grace and favour and acceptance. 

Here we have the very idea suggested to us. We, 
being dead to sin, like the burnt offering, burnt to ashes, 
shall live unto righteousness, like that other offering 
going up in fire to God, and being accepted with God, 
not counted by God as dead but living; not as being 
turned to ashes, but being turned into incense; not as 
going downward, but as going upward ; not as perishing, 
but as surviving the flame. And so Jesus Christ calls 
to our mind now the whole round of the sweet savour 
offering. He who was the kid slain for sin, and the kid 
of the goats taken away into the wilderness to carry 
away the remembrance of sin, and He who was the sin 
and the trespass offerings identified with our guilt, and 
removing our guilt, was also the sweet savour offering, 
to bear up before God the hew life that comes out of the 
ashes of our death to sin. 

The next of these passages is, " He gave Himself for 
us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify 
us unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good 
works." Now, here is a changed thought not at all sug- 
gested in the others. Here is the word " redemption," 
which means to buy back, to purchase a slave out of 
slavery or bondage; and here is the purification of the 



94 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



people of God, so that they shall be led to serve God 
with newness of life and hope and joy. What does that 
recall? The year of jubilee. When the day of atone- 
ment came to its close, once in forty-nine years, the 
trumpet sounded for what was called the year of jubilee; 
and in that year of jubilee three things took place. Every 
slave was set free; all debts were cancelled; and lost 
estates were restored to their owners. And there was 
another peculiar thing about that year of jubilee. If a 
man that had been a servant to another man, when it was 
proclaimed to him that the time of his deliverance was 
come, refused to be delivered, and said, " I would rather 
serve my master than be a free man," then they took 
him to the doorpost of the house in which his master 
dwelt, and they bored his ear through with an awl, fasten- 
ing his ear for a moment to the doorpost. This proclaimed 
the fact that he would not be separated from his master, 
and that by his own act he was fastened, as it were, to 
the doorpost of his master's house. And so it is said 
of Christ in the fortieth Psalm, " Mine ear hast Thou 
bored. I delighted to do Thy will, O my God," as 
though Christ Himself so magnified the privilege of 
service that he would rather remain a servant than not 
be a servant. You see that in these words you have a 
reference to the events of the year of jubilee — the redemp- 
tion from all iniquity, the purchasing of the slave out of 
bondage, the paying of his debts, and the restoring of 
the lost estate, and then the purifying of God's people 
in a holy service so that they are willing to have their 
ears bored to the blood-stained doorpost, and delight 
themselves in yielding what they have and are to their 
Master for the good work of a serviceable life. 

There is another passage that is needed to complete this 
review. Christ gave Himself for our sins, ihat He might 
redeem us from this present evil world, or dvil age. What 



VICARIOUS DYING 



95 



additional thought is presented here? There are two 
great ages in the Bible, not to speak of others. There 
is the present evil age, and there is the age to come when 
Christ is to be reigning in millennial glory. And here 
we are told that Christ came and gave Himself for us 
and suffered for us, that He might deliver us from this 
present evil age, and translate us into the age to come, 
which is the real thought. You will notice that in the 
Bible there are two types of the present evil age. One 
is Egypt, and the other is Babylon ; Egypt where the 
children of Israel began their bondage, Babylon where 
they had their last great period of captivity. Egypt 
represents the world. They came out from the world 
when they entered on the service of God. Babylon repre- 
sents the world. They went back into the w*orld when 
they apostatized from God; and the crime in all cases 
in which the children of Israel were carried captive was 
that they trusted in man and not in God. " Cursed be 
the man that putteth his confidence in man, thai maketh 
the arm of flesh his trust." That is the substance of 
apostasy, for while you are a sinner you trust in your 
own righteousness. That is the soul of apostasy. If 
when you become a child of God you turn back to your 
own righteousness and the beggarly elements which you 
have forsaken, and lean on the arm of flesh, and confide 
in forms and ceremonies or anything else except the 
blood and work of Christ, that is apostasy from Christ. 

That is not going back into Egypt ; that is getting into 
captivity in Babylon. So this same Jesus Christ who 
is represented as fulfilling all that the day of atonement 
suggested, all that the law of cleansing suggested, all 
that the sin and the trespass offerings suggested, all that 
the sweet savour offering suggested, all that the great 
year of jubilee suggested, is also represented as fulfilling 
all that the escape from Egypt suggests, or the return 



& ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.O. 



from the captivity of Babylon suggests. He delivers H 
people from this present evil world. He shows the 
how to depend on Him, and not on themselves ; how to 
depend on Him and not on their own fellow-men ; how to 
rest in His grace, and not on what the Church can do; 
how to depend on prayer and devotion, and not on forms 
and on ceremonies. He shows them how to rest on a 
finished work as well as a finished atonement, an inter- 
cession that is always finished and yet never finished; 
so that we who have been saved from the guilt of sin and 
the power of sin and the penalty of sin, and who are to 
be saved from the presence of sin, may be saved from 
apostatizing from God, or going Sack to the beggarly 
elements of this world. 

The seventh passage is a very sweet one. It does not 
fall within the circle of this history of Israel, as I con- 
ceive, but it adds another blessed thought. " He left 
us an example that we should follow His steps." You 
know, there was a remnant of Israel saved. Even at the 
time when Baal-worship overspread the whole com- 
munity, there were seven thousand that had not bowed 
the knee, and God has always had, even in the times 
of apostasy, a select remnant of people who have been 
true to Him, and He always will have. It would seem 
as though this leaving us an example, that we should 
follow His steps, refers to that precious remnant of grace 
who, by looking to Jesus Christ, and not to man, com- 
paring themselves with Him, and not with others or 
with their own best attainments, but just looking at 
Him as a boy looks at the copy in his copybook, writing 
down beneath the copy in exact conformity with the 
copy — for that is the very word used here — just a written 
copy, leaving us a written copy that we should imitate 
it — it seems as though the suggestion was here made to 
us that the secret of the salvation of the remnant, and 



VICARIOUS DYING 



97 



the fidelity of God's few witnesses in the midst of a 
general and widespread apostasy, is this — that they keep 
the Master's writing before them, and they seek to follow 
in everything the example of their blessed Lord. 

I have already said that these few precious and primary 
truths are the foundation of character and the foundation 
of destiny, and from all our wanderings we come back to 
that. It is said that the late Bishop of Durham, who was 
one of the wisest and greatest men that the English 
Church has ever known, who wrote so learnedly, and 
taught so grandly, and preached so magnificently, during 
his later days was afflicted with a long lingering illness, 
and so retired a great deal into quiet, and his friends 
thought that he must be studying up some great theo- 
logical theme such as he had given his life to defending 
and expounding ; and when they asked him what he was 
thinking of, he said, 4 'There are three or four great 
truths that I keep thinking about and praying over all 
the time." The great man came back, from all his 
wanderings in philosophy and theology and science, to 
just two or three of these great truths, and this was one 
of them. And then a story is likewise told of Bishop 
Butler, who has been called the Melchisedek of the 
English Church, because there was no one before him 
like him, and no one after him like him. He seemed 
to stand alone, without predecessor or successor. He 
fell into darkness in his last days. Temptation and a 
horror of great darkness fell upon him, and his friend 
and chaplain was trying to comfort him, and present 
the great truths of the Bible. ' ' Oh, yes," he said, 
" I have no doubt of these great truths, but the question 
is, Are they for me? Are they for me?" And God 
just put it into his chaplain's mouth to say, " Him that 
cometh unto Me I will in nowise cast out." He said, 
"That is so comforting and so precious," and those 

H 



9 S ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



were the last words of Bishop Butler. And we recall 
the testimony of C. H. Spurgeon, who, in preaching 
at his vast church, said to his friends, ' 1 There are four 
words that I have lived by and expect to die by : 1 He 
died for me.' " If you believe that precious message, 
then it is all that you need for this life, or for the life to 
come. 

A dear friend of mine was explaining what it meant 
to receive the kingdom of God as a little child. " Now," 
he said, "how does a little child receive anything? 
Why, here is a little infant just beginning to talk, and 
the little child falls down in the road and gets up 
besmeared, and says ' Mamma, wash me. Mamma, feed 
me. Mamma, carry me. Mamma, dress me.' The 
little child cannot wash herself, feed herself, dress her- 
self, carry herself, so she just receives the washing, and 
the clothing, and the feeding, and the carrying." And, 
as my friend said, that is the way to receive the kingdom 
of God. Just come to the Lord Jesus, and say, " Now, 
Lord, I am most filthy, and I cannot wash myself ; wash 
me. I am hungry, and I cannot feed myself; feed me. 
I am naked, and I cannot clothe myself ; clothe me. I 
am weary, and I cannot stand or walk; carry me." If 
you are ready to receive the kingdom of God as a little 
child, and just take what Jesus has done for you in that 
simple way, you will find in His Cross the balm for all 
your woes. 



Ill 



Love for the Loveless 

11 But God commendeth His love toward us, in that while 
we were yet sinners Christ died for us." — Romans v. 8. 

WE often say that love is an attribute of God, but 
does this express the full truth? The 
Apostle John tells us in his first epistle that 
"God is love." Love is not merely an attribute; it 
is the very essence and substance and being of God. This 
passage sets before us this love. The word " commendeth" 
here does not mean simply the act of recommending. 
The thought of the apostle — the thought of the Holy 
Ghost behind the apostle — is not that God commendeth 
to us His love ; it is love toward us that He commendeth ; 
and the commendeth means to set in a striking light, to 
exhibit, to evince, to hold up for our admiration. It 
implies a contrast with all other love — something beyond 
and above the highest ideal of human affection. 

This text presents before us the love, the gift, and the 
object. As I have said, the love of God is peculiar ; we 
use the same word oftentimes in different senses; and 
we use the same word " love " in different senses. The 
Apostle John, who had a remarkable insight into the love 
of God, and was chosen by the Spirit of God specially 
to write upon love, and whose first epistle is everywhere 
full of this great theme, says, " We love Him because 
He first loved us." Now, in that very passage you will 
see that the word love is used in two quite different 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



senses, for it is quite obvious that our love to God and 
God's love to us are quite different. We are accustomed 
to divide between what we term a love of complacency 
and a love of benevolence. And as these are very com- 
mon terms, it may be best to understand the difference. 
The love of complacence means a love that is drawn out 
from us by the discovery of lovely qualities in other 
people ; but the love of benevolence means the love that 
is drawn out from us without regard to the lovely qualities 
discovered in others, but for the sake of the good that 
we can do and the blessing that we can impart. It is 
the love of complacence when a man, becoming 
acquainted with an intellectual, cultivated, virtuous 
maiden, feels his heart drawn out to her by the beauty of 
her character, or when one friend, discovering in another 
friend amiable, attractive, and beautiful traits, gives love 
on account of the discovery of these charms of character. 
That is the love of complacence. But when to a beggar, 
perhaps a sinner degraded and filthy down below your 
social level, exhibiting perhaps nothing but the most 
unattractive and repulsive features to you — when to a 
beggar you give alms, when you seek to clothe his naked- 
ness, to feed his hunger, to quench his thirst, to provide 
him with a home ; when you surround one that is person- 
ally disagreeable to you, and perhaps hateful to you, 
with the ministries of affection — that is love of benevo- 
lence. There is a great deal of difference between these 
two sorts of love. The love of complacence is in a sense 
voluntary; you cannot help but love what is lovable; 
if you discover what is lovable, your admiration is drawn 
out, and if you are virtuous yourself you cannot but 
respond to the attraction of beauty and excellence in 
character. 

Then the love of complacence depends upon acquaint- 
ance. You must know the object and you must discover 



LOVE FOR THE LOVELESS 



the qualities of the object before this love of complacence 
can be exercised. And then, moreover, the love of com- 
placence is exclusive. It has comparatively few objects ; 
it delights in them, it rejoices in their possession, and it 
desires not to extend very largely the exercise of its 
affection. And then the love of complacence is inten- 
sive; it reaches right down to the depths of our being; 
it takes hold of all that there is in us ; if there is power 
to respond, there is a response; if there is virtue, it 
must exercise its affection, as I have said, when virtue 
is discovered in others, and so the love of complacence 
is partial and oftentimes intensely partial. 

But now look, on the other hand, at trie love of benevo- 
lence. The love of benevolence is never exercised 
involuntarily. It is a voluntary love. It is not evoked 
from us by the discovery of beauties in others, it comes 
simply from a determination. It is a principle of love. 
And then, again, it is extensive and not intensive. It 
Has broad range and scope. Instead of being partial, it 
is impartial and universal. It does not even depend 
upon tbe acquaintance which we have with other people. 
It bestows its blessings somewhat as God bestows His 
blessings, impartially and universally. Not, as I Have 
said, exclusive, but inclusive ; not intensive, but exten- 
sive ; not partial, but impartial ; not selfish, but universal. 
That is the love of God to us ; we love God, that is the 
love of complacence. We discover beauty in God, and 
we respond to it. 11 We love Him because He first loved 
us." That is the love of benevolence. He did not dis- 
cover beautiful qualities in us that He loved us. He 
loved us despite all our unloveliness, and therefore He 
loved us with a benevolent love. Let us, first of all, get 
Hold of the character of the love of God. It is a benevo- 
lent love, a voluntary love, an extensive, impartial, 
universal, unselfish love that yearns to give to the most 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



unworthy, yearns to give to everybody alike, yearns to 
give without reference to any merit or desert in us. And 
in that very fact that God's love is such a love, He 
exhibits that love, sets it up in a striking light before us 
in contrast to any other love of which the world knows 
anything. 

Now, this love has made a very marked and wonderful 
exhibition of itself in what it has done for us in its 
activity toward us ; for we must remember that love is a 
force ; and force demands activity ; for instance, gravita- 
tion is a force ; it is impossible to imagine gravitation as 
sleeping or being dormant. It must act, and it must act 
in every direction, and it must act always. And the 
greatest forces of which we know anything are forces that 
show themselves to be such by their perpetual activity. 
Fire must have vent. A stream must have a channel. 
And all love must have an exhibition and an expression. 
And because God not only has love, but is love, He must 
act, and act in a loving way. The very word "benevo- 
lent " implies that love gives. Benevolence means well 
wishing, and well wishing leads to beneficence, which is 
well doing; and the very fact that we call this love a 
benevolent love, or a love of benevolence, implies giving ; 
and so the activity of love is the activity of giving; a 
universal giving, an impartial giving, a perpetual 
giving, a giving because it is God's nature to give, just 
as it is the nature of the sun to shine and the nature of 
the stream to flow. The measure of a gift is always 
determined by what it is that is given, and by how much 
it costs to give it ; and I want you to notice that God 
gave His only begotten Son. Did you ever think that 
it is a greater thing to give a person than to give anything 
else; a mere object, a mere material thing. If you go 
to India you will see what is known as the Taj Mahal, 
the finest building in the world, more magnificent by far 



LOVE FOR THE LOVELESS 



than St. Paul's in London or St. Peter's in Rome; 
costly, pure, symmetrical ; a type and ideal of beauty 
made of sculptured marble and sculptured ivory, and 
inlaid with gold and gems, with sentences of the Koran, 
the sacred book of the Mahommedan. It is a perfect 
wonder of the world. It was erected by an Indian prince 
to commemorate his love for his departed wife ; it is really 
a kind of mausoleum monument of the dead. Great gift, 
costly gift, magnificent gift, wonderful tribute of love; 
but remember this : Give us an architect or builder, give 
us royal riches, and" we can open other mines where 
marbles lie and golden gems are found, and we can build 
another structure that shall equal the Taj Mahal and, 
perhaps, surpass it in beauty and symmetry and costli- 
ness and elegance. But you can never duplicate a person, 
though you may duplicate a building. 

God did not give a w r orld of one entire and perfect 
diamond, a world of gold and gems. Why, He could 
have rolled ten thousand worlds along the floors of heaven 
and sacrified them all for the sake of men, and it would 
not have cost Him anything, for by one effort of His 
will He could turn all those worlds into being again 
after they had been destroyed or sacrificed. But God 
had one only begotten Son ; not a thing, not a gem, 
not a mine of gold, not a world of riches, but a Person ; 
one Person, the only Person that God could give ; His 
one Son, His only begotten Son, His well-beloved Son, 
and He gave Him as a sacrifice. Now, when we talk 
of the death of Christ on the cross we too often forget 
that the whole life of Christ was in a sense a death. 
When He left the throne of glory and laid aside the 
mantle of His royal power and the sceptre of royal 
dominion — when He came down and consented to be born 
of a woman as a babe born in Bethlehem, born in a stable, 
laid in a manger, to wear the clothes of poverty, to have 



104 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



no place where to lay His head, to be poor and forsaken 
and despised and outcast, to be hated and mocked and 
insulted, to be scourged, to have a crown of thorns on 
His brow where the crown of universal empire sat, and 
to die on the cross as a malefactor, and to have enemies 
pass by and mock and deride His dying agony. Why, 
the whole life of Christ was a death from His birth to His 
crucifixion. Humiliation, mockery, insult, injury. I 
never like to speak of what must have been the feelings 
of God during the dying agonies of Christ. It is quite 
too august a subject for any human being to discuss, but 
if any of you who is a father has ever stood over one son 
and seen the dying agonies of that son, and witnessed 
those dying agonies for hours, you know something of 
what the feeling of a father must be over an only son 
that is undergoing the pangs of dissolution. And what 
do you think must have been the emotions of God the 
Father as He looked down from Heaven and saw His 
only begotten and well-beloved Son crucified and hang- 
ing on the cross and suffering the mortal pangs of disso- 
lution from the third hour until the ninth hour of that 
awful day of tragedy ? Could God have done anything 
more than this? He gave a Person, the Person, the 
one present that was the object of His intense and infinite 
love, His only begotten and well-beloved Son. He gave 
Him to a life of humiliation, a life of mockery, to a life 
of insult, hanging in crucifixion as a malefactor between 
two thieves. God sets His love before us in most 
striking light in contrast to all other love, in that He 
gave all He had to give, the sacred Person of His own 
Son. He gave Him to the sacrifice of the cross. 

Now, look at the object of that love " for us." And 
who were we? Those words in the fifth chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans describe our condition, and it is 
quite remarkable that those words grow in force and 



LOVE FOR THE LOVELESS 105 

meaning as they proceed. In the sixth verse we are 
told " While we were yet without strength." The word 
means helplessly weak — " In due time Christ died for the 
ungodly;" and then, again, " While we were yet sinners 
Christ died for us;" and then again, " When we were 
enemies." Look at these four words, helplessly weak, 
ungodly, positively and degradedly sinful, and not only 
so, but enemies, adversaries, hostile to God. The apostle 
has been telling us why it is that God sets His love in 
such striking contrast with all the human exhibitions of 
love. He says, " For scarcely for a righteous man will 
one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would 
even dare to die." But we were neither righteous nor 
good. Men have sacrificed their lives for other men, but 
it has been where the love of complacence has been 
evoked, as in the case of Damon and Pythias. One of 
these friends offered to die for the other, and would have 
died for the other had not the other made his appearance 
at the last moment. And then the sovereign who was 
about to have executed one of them was so much struck 
at their devotion to one another that he pardoned the 
offender, and begged to be admitted into the circle of a 
friendship so wonderful. 

Men have been known to die for each other, friend for 
friend. They have died for a good man, they have died 
perhaps for a righteous man, though not so often, but 
Christ says, " Greater love hath no man than this, that a 
man lay down his life for his friend." It is the ideal of 
human love that a man for his friend's sake lays down his 
own life. And yet remember this, that where men's love 
ends God's love only begins. When you have reached 
the highest ideal of human sacrifice and human affection 
you are only on the mountain-top with the heavens infi- 
nitely above you, and it is in the heavens that God dwells. 
Not until you can estimate the difference between the 



io6 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 




height of the highest mountain of the earth and the great 
distance from the earth to Sirius", or those great stars 
that sparkle in the firmament, can you begin to express 
or understand the difference between the height of human 
love and the height of the Divine love. " Greater love 
hath no man than this, that he die for his friends." 
" But God commends His love towards us in that while 
we were weak and helpless, while we were godless, while 
we were enemies, Christ died for us " ; and if you look in 
the life of Christ for His miracles I will tell you what 
the greatest miracle is. It is the utterance of that prayer 
on the cross, " Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do." When we were throwing back in His 
teeth His very agonising groans ; when we were mocking 
and insulting and deriding Him, He prayed, " Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do." And 
that is the most stupendous miracle that Christ ever 
wrought, the miracle of a prayer for such sinners as 
they were. 

I want to get before us, in conclusion, this idea of 
Christ dying for us. Substitution, taking another's 
place. You see the apostle does not leave us to misunder- 
stand what this dying for us means. Let us look at two 
or three of the other phrases here; <f Christ died for the 
ungodly ; Christ died for us ; when we were enemies we 
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son by 
whom we have received the atonement and reconcilia- 
tion." You see there might possibly be a doubt as to 
what it means by Christ dying for us; but when we 
are told that the effect of Christ's death was that while 
we were ungodly and sinful and enemies to God we 
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, then 
we begin to understand that Christ's death for us implies 
such a substitution, such a taking of our place as that 
the enmity between God and us is done away, and sin 



LOVE FOR THE LOVELESS 



no longer becomes an obstacle to fellowship and 
sympathy and union with the Lord Himself. 

Blessed be God that the Bible tells its own story and 
explains its own terms. What is reconciliation? 
Reconciliation is the bringing together of parties who 
have been alienated from each other. The effect of sin 
was mutual alienation between God and men. God could 
not look with favour upon sinners, and sinners would not 
look with love upon God; so God and the sinner were 
hopelessly estranged but for the precious blood of Christ ; 
and when Jesus Christ died for us, taking the sinner's 
place, bearing in His own body on the tree our guilt and 
the equivalent of our punishment, then it became possible 
for God to take us into favour and put away the mountain 
of our sins that was like an obstacle to all fellowship and 
communion and even practical acquaintance with God. 

This doctrine of substitution is very sweet to my soul ; 
it is so simple and so easily understood after all. Why, 
you cannot look into the depths of God's love, and you 
cannot look into the depths of Christ's sacrifice, but you 
can understand what the effects of it are. In the war in 
America for the preservation of the Union there was a 
Wisconsin mechanic, who was drafted into the army. 
He had a large family and a wife depending upon him. 
The wife was quite an invalid, and fie himself a poor 
working man, with no reserve of funds saved, for he had 
scarcely been able to maintain his family, and there was 
a young man, a friend of his unmarried and without 
family, and he came forward and said, 14 I will go for 
you; I will take your place." And he insisted upon it. 
He went to the war, and in the Battle of Gettysburg he 
fell, mortally wounded, and when the news came up to 
Wisconsin that this friend had died on the field of battle, 
this poor mechanic, himself a carpenter, made a head- 
board worked in hard wood and as enduring as he could 



io8 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



make it, and he went with that headboard and worked his 
way down to Gettysburg and planted the board at the 
head of the grave. It bore the name of the young man 
who had been killed, and underneath were these four 
words, " He died for me." This is a simple, beautiful 
illustration of substitution. He went to the war for him, 
he went into the battle for him, he received the bullet for 
him, he died for him, and all that the man could do was 
to put up a headboard for him with the words, " He 
died for me." 

But that was one friend dying for another. It was 
substitution, but it was the substitution of friend- 
ship. But Christ's is the substitution of the Eternal 
Friend for His enemies, persecutors, slanderers, cruci- 
fiers. When Erskine was called before the Scottish 
judges and told that if he did not stop preaching this 
glorious gospel of the grace of God, his life would be in 
peril, his answer was, " I will never stop preaching the 
glorious gospel of the grace of God until you can blot 
out and obliterate that sentence in which Christ says to 
the unbelieving Jews, ' My Father giveth you the true 
bread from Heaven,' and until you can blot out and 
obliterate that sentence from the Word of God will I 
cease to carry the Bread of Lffe to the hungering souls 
of my fellow-men." And so I would say, let those who 
know this precious gospel go to the stake rather than 
keep a silent tongue when the world round about us is 
dying without Christ, and we know that He died for us. 

There is a very beautiful biography of Joseph Neesima, 
the Japanese, who founded the Doshisha or the one-aim 
school for the training of Japanese young men for the 
ministry. He was a native Japanese. Very early in 
life, when he was a mere lad, he made up his mind that 
none of these gilded images of Buddha could save them. 
He saw them in the wrought iron plain castings. He saw 



LOVE FOR THE LOVELESS 



them when they were gilded iron. He saw them with 
the gold leaf laid in plating over the iron casting, and 
he said, " It is impossible that a piece of iron, though 
it bear the image of a God and is gilded with gold leaf, 
can do men any good ' ' ; and he threw away his idols, and 
would have nothing to do with idolatry. But he had no 
religion ; he had not heard yet of the Saviour of mankind. 
He got hold of a Chinese Bible. He took up that Bible. 
He knew a little Chinese; enough to read what was in 
the Bible after a little painstaking effort; and the very 
first words he came to were the words of the first verse 
of Genesis : " In the beginning God created the heavens 
and the earth." He said immediately, " I never saw 
this book before; I know nothing about it, but there 
is more wisdom in that one sentence than in any of the 
sacred books I have ever seen that have to do with my 
own religion." He could not rest until he had a chance 
of owning one of these Bibles for himself, for this was 
nothing but an abridged copy. He heard that these 
Bibles had been printed in America, and he longed to go 
to America. So he escaped in the disguise of a servant 
on a vessel bound for Hong Kong, and while the vessel 
was stopping at Hong Kong and he was trying to get 
a vessel to the United States, he went into a little shop 
in Hong Kong and there found a Chinese New Testa- 
ment, and bought it by sacrificing, for it a little body 
sword that he wore. And then on the vessel, as he 
worked his way to America, he read that Bible in every 
spare hour; and when he came to John iii. 16 : " God so 
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life," he said, " In the first chapter of 
Genesis and the first verse I found wisdom for my mind, 
but here I have found wisdom for my heart." And as 
that first verse had led him to God the Creator, that 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



sixteenth verse of the third chapter of John had led him 
to God the Redeemer, and he went back to Japan and 
there established that Doshisha and occupied himself 
during the rest of his life in training the young men of 
his own native country to preach the gospel of the grace 
of God, and to tell men that " God so loved the world 
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life." 

Joseph Neesima will rise in the judgment to condemn 
hundreds of people who have been habitual attendants 
at the churches of our country. They have heard the 
precious gospel of the grace of God preached in their 
ears till they have become gospel hardened. They have 
had the exhibitions of the love of God presented to them 
until they have become tame and commonplace and 
ineffective. Here is a young man who before he heard 
of this Bible and this Christ cast away his idols; his 
first glimpse into the Bible showed him that God was 
the Creator, and that that Bible must be the revelation of 
Him, and his second glimpse into the Bible showed him 
that God was the Redeemer, for no such love was ever 
known among men as the love of God. That was fore- 
shadowed in the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of 
John. Down on his knees in the cabin of that boat he 
went, and in the darkness he prayed to this new God. 
He said, " O God, I know very little about Thee, but 
Thou art the God that made the Heavens and the earth, 
and didst give Thy only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth should not perish ; now show me how to take 
this gift." And God showed him how to take the 
gift. He poured His grace into His soul; He revealed 
His love to a poor sinner ; and that Japanese will stand 
in the judgment and, by his presence at the right hand 
of God, will condemn hundreds and perhaps thousands 



LOVE FOR THE LOVELESS in 



whose privileges were far greater, and whose opportuni- 
ties were more extensive. " God commends His love 
towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died 
for us. Being reconciled to God by the death of His 
Son, we shall be saved by His life." A salvation by the 
blood on the cross; a salvation by His love on high ; one 
act on the cross atoning for us, but a life on the throne 
interceding for us. One act completing the finished 
work of redemption, but an everlasting series of acts at 
the right hand of the throne of God supporting the soul 
that He saves, and strengthening the penitent and believ- 
ing sinner in the new way of life in which by the grace 
of God he is treading. I want to plead with you, in the 
name of Jesus, that you will let this love come into your 
hearts and make a new man or a new woman of you, 
so that you may go and write down over your lost and 
ruined life, " Jesus died for me." 



IV 



The Soul's First Quest 

4 ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, 
and all these things shall be added unto you.'* — ZXCatthcw 
vi. 33. 

THIS is the imperial sermon of the ages. It is trie 
longest discourse which is attributed to our Lord 
in the pages of the New Testament. It requires 
close and careful study to reveal its symmetry. It 
is by no means a mere collection of wise sayings like trie 
Book of Proverbs, by no means a disjointed discourse 
without continuous thought or logical order. It is one 
of the most magnificent of all the words spoken in the 
ears of men. It is, in a sense, one word — this whole dis- 
course ; that is to say, it is one complete message given 
to the sons of men. Careful attention to the whole 
discourse will reveal its parts. It is divided up into 
sections, but even the sections are continuous. Their 
order could not be changed without violation of the 
symmetry. For instance, our Lord begins by the out- 
lining of the character of a true disciple. Then He goes 
on to speak next of such a disciple in the world as shown 
by two very familiar and simple illustrations, the light 
and the salt. Then He goes on to correct certain evils 
that enter into human conduct, and still more to strike 
at the sources of the evil in human character. Then He 
gives us certain great precepts which are to guide us in 
external and internal righteousness. 

112 



THE SOUL'S FIRST QUEST 113 



Now, the verse which I desire to consider is a kind of 
centre round which the whole discourse revolves. Look- 
ing backward, it interprets what goes before. Looking 
forward, it anticipates what follows. And I have no 
hesitation in saying that I think it is the most important 
of all the verses of the Sermon on the Mount. 

If we should examine the passage of which this is the 
conclusion, that section of the discourse which begins 
with the nineteenth verse, we should find in the course 
of these fifteen verses, including the thirty-fourth, 
undoubtedly here given ten great arguments for seeking 
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. The 
whole section refers to the inferior things and the 
superior things, the things that men actually do seek 
first, and the one thing that ought to be sought first; 
and, as our Lord is going to teach us this great lesson 
about making the supreme thing practically supreme, 
He begins by referring to the lower objects which abso- 
lutely do engross and absorb the attention of men. He 
says, " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth 
where moth and dust do corrupt, and where thieves break 
through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in 
heaven." There is the first of the arguments. You 
ought, first of all, to love the kingdom of God. Your 
heart will always be where your treasure is. Now, where 
do you want your heart to be ? Where do you honestly 
think it ought to be ? Did you ever think of the ethics of 
language ? That is, of the moral lessons that are taught 
us in the very words we use? Take that word " miser." 
It expresses the man who lays up for himself treasures 
upon earth. The Latin word miser means a wretch, and 
from it come the English words " miserable " and 
" misery," so that the very language men use serves to 
show us that in the common-sense of mankind that man 
who lays up treasure for himself is laying up wretched- 

I 



n 4 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

ness for himself. Take another example. It is a very 
common thing to say that such and such a man dies 
" possessed of a fortune." Why, it is a most melan- 
choly statement. I suppose that the man ought to 
possess the fortune, not the fortune possess him. Yet 
there is many a man that both lives and dies " possessed 
of a fortune." The fortune is the owner, and it has got 
the man, holds him in a deadly grip, masters him at 
every point, masters his thoughts, masters his love, 
masters his conscience, masters his will, masters his 
speech, masters his energy. The fortune possesses the 
man, not the man the fortune. Now, where should your 
heart be? Just look beyond this world. Look into the 
great future. When you come to stand at the beginning 
of your true life, your immortality, and look back to 
this world with its three score years and ten of life, where 
will it seem to you then that your heart ought to have 
been fixed? " W r here your treasure is there will your 
heart be also." Now, put your treasure where you 
honestly think your heart ought to be. That is the 
first argument. It is a masterly argument. 

Then the second argument of our Lord for seeking 
first the kingdom of God is " The light of the body is 
the eye; therefore if thine eye be single "—that is, sees 
a single object — " thy whole body shall be full of light; 
but if thine eye be evil "—that is, sees a double object, or 
sees dimly and indistinctly — " thy whole body shall be 
full of darkness." Now, what is the office of the eyes 
to the body? First of all, the eye is the inlet for light, 
and, secondly, the eye is the organ by which the mind 
communicates with the external world. The eye, there- 
fore, is the type of the mind which answers in our intellec- 
tual life and spiritual life the same purpose as the eye 
answers in the body. The mind serves to receive impres- 
sions frorn external things, and to qommunicate the 



THE SOUL'S FIRST QUEST 115 

thoughts that are within us to others outside us. And so 
the second argument of our Lord is this: " Do not be • 
double-minded. You cannot be absorbed in two things 
at the same time. There is only one thing that ought to 
absorb, or is worthy to absorb, your thought, and that 
is the unseen and the external rather than the visible 
and temporal. Do not try to look at heaven and earth 
at once. Cast your eyes to that which ought to fix your 
gaze, and which alone is worthy to enamour and entrance 
your vision. " 

Now, what is the third argument of our Lord? " No 
man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the 
one and love the other " — which refers to the feelings — 
n or else he will hold to the one and despise (or neglect) • 
the other " — which refers to external action. If here 
are two masters who are mutually at enmity, and whose 
service would lead in different directions, it is impossible 
that you should love both of them at' the same time, and 
it is impossible that you srlould serve both of them at 
the same time ; and so, you see, as the first argument 
addresses the heart, and the second the mind, the third 
addresses the will. " Choose ye tHis day whom ye will 
serve." Whom will you take for your master? Will 
you take mammon or God? Will you bow down to a 
golden calf, or bow down to the Almighty and Everlast- 
ing One? You see that this whole discourse is a 
systematic discourse, though the divisions do not 
appear, except as you examine closely. They are there, 
just as the skeleton of a man is inside of the flesh, 
although the bones may not stick out. The bones of this 
discourse are the framework on which it is laid. 

Let us look at the other arguments here. " Is not the 
life more than meat and the body than raiment ? " Here 
is the fourth argument. There is only one thing that is 
of supreme value, Therefore, seek that first. Meat 



n6 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



sustains life, but the life is of more value than the meat 
that sustains it ; otherwise, the meat would not be sub- 
ordinated to the life. Here is the raiment that clothes 
the body, and the body that is clothed by the raiment; 
but the body is greater and more valuable than the 
raiment; otherwise, the raiment would not be used as a 
minister to the body. Now, the Lord says, M Think 
more of your life than you do of meat that sustains it, 
- and more of your body than you do of the raiment which 
clothes it " ; and then He reminds us how the fowls of 
the air sow not and reap not, nor gather into barns, and 
yet our Heavenly Father feeds them. Ye are much better 
than they. The lilies of the field toil not, neither do they 
spin ; and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
in a fabric as wonderful as the fabric of the leaves and 
flowers, the stamens and petals, of the lily. Set your 
heart, your mind, your will, on that which is of the 
highest value, and not upon that which is subordinate 
to it, which has a temporary value only, and only then 
as it contributes to that which is permanent. 

Then, again, " Which of you by faking thought can 
add to his stature one cubit ?" or as it might be rendered 
"can add to his life-term one span? " Here is the fifth 
, argument. Worry avails nothing. You may worry all 
you will, but your worry will not bring you meat or 
drink or raiment or a home. You can take as much 
anxious thought as you please, but you will not make 
your body to grow in stature a cubit. You will not make 
your life to extend over a single span by your worrying. 
Now, if you are going to take anxious thought, why not 
take anxious thought for that in which anxious thought 
will accomplish something ? To be anxious about being 
like God and about extending 'God's kingdom will pay 
you for your holy anxiety — shall end in greater sanctifi- 



THE SOUL'S FIRST QUEST 117 

cation and greater serviceableness, but all your worry 
about this world will not avail you. 

Then our Lord gives us His next argument. 4 'All 
these things do the nations of the world seek after." The 
child of God ought not to identify himself with godless 
and faithless people. The way of the world is to centre 
all thought on things that perish, and pass anxious days 
and solicitous nights about " What shall we eat, and 
what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be 
clothed? " But you have got a Heavenly Father. Are 
you not ashamed to identify yourself with those that 
know no God and acknowledge no Father ? 

Then our Lord gives us another argument. 
" Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." I have 
just said that worry does not avail. It will not give 
you food, or raiment, or a home, or lengthen out 
your life by as much as a span. But while worry 
cannot provide you against the future, it may serve to 
give you a great deal of trouble in advance. What a 
subtle suggestion is here. kk Sufficient unto the day is . 
the evil thereof." Suppose that there is want before 
you. Why make the want ten times as severe in its 
pressure by anticipating it before it comes? Suppose 
that you are going to be sick, even with long and linger- 
ing illness, what is the use of making your soul sick while 
you are yet in health by anticipating the day of illness ? 
There are thousands of people who " die a thousand 
deaths in fearing one," and suffer a thousand ills in 
anticipating one. Worry, I repeat, is not only needless, • 
but it is sinful, for it implies distrust of God. "Your 
Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these 
things." That is our Lord's next argument— the 
Fatherhood of God. 

I wish that all of us could feel this great truth. Just 
the moment you come under the shelter of the blood 



n8 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



of your elder brother, the second Adam, you have come 
into the family of God, and He is your Father. And 
henceforth there is not a promise that the Father has 
ever addressed to His children that is not for you. The 
Father's care is over you, even over the least of all things 
that pertain to you. The very hairs of your head are all 
numbered. Though there be on the normal scalp three 
hundred thousand hairs as they have been counted by 
those who have been careful enough to see just how 
many hairs find a lodgment in a healthy scalp, there is 
not one of those three hundred thousand hairs that can 
fail out of that scaip without your Heavenly Father 
knowing of the fact. And if a thing that has so little 
to do with your comfort as the loss of a hair, or with 
your impoverishment as the loss of a hair, is thought of 
by your Father, do you think that He will sese you 
starving and not care, or suffering the pangs of disease 
and not care, or coming down into the valley of the 
shadow of death and not care? My brother, where is 
your confidence in the fatherhood of God ? 4 ' Like as a 
father pitieth his children, the Lord pitieth those that 
fear Him ; for He knoweth our frame ; He remembereth 
that we are dust." Just as soon as you take Jesus as your 
Saviour, just consider that henceforth the 91st Psalm is 
your abiding place, and go and take possession of the 
precious verses and promises of that Psalm. Look up 
and say, " My Father, Thy little child trusts Thee 
implicitly." 

But then our Lord gives us one other argument for 
seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, 
and that is a positive promise. "All these things shall 
be added unto you." He does not leave it to inference, 
from what we might expect from God as a 
Father; but He says positively that if you seek 
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness 



THE SOUL'S FIRST QUEST 



all these things — not part of them — " all these things 
shall be added " — not " may be added," but " shall be 
added unto you." 

Notice that word "add." There are such precious 
lessons in arithmetic in the Bible. Here is a sum in 
addition. Here are things that are needful for your daily 
wants. Instead of absorbing yourself in the seeking of 
those things, you seek that which is higher, and grander, 
and nobler, and ought to be supreme, and now the Lord 
gives you that which you have asked; and, as in the 
case of Solomon, He gives you supremely that which you 
have not asked. He says, " Because thou hast asked 
this thing, and hast not asked those things for thyself 
first of all, behold I have given thee these that thou hast 
asked, and all other things I give thee which thou hast 
put in' the inferior category and left comparatively out 
of sight." That is God's way of doing. 

Now, in conclusion, let me try to make still more 
emphatic these precious words by showing you really 
what they mean. What is the kingdom of God, and 
what is the righteousness of God? We have seen that 
they ought to be sought first ; but what are they that we 
are to seek first ? A kingdom is a territory that is ruled 
over by a king. It may be, like the empire of Britain, 
yery widespread; it may be scattered in very many 
colonies in different parts of the earth. But you know 
the kingdom when you come upon it by certain unmistak- 
able signs. In my home in America on the Detroit 
River, the town of Windsor belongs to Canada. Detroit 
belongs to the American Republic ; Windsor belongs to 
the Empire of Britain. Just the moment that we cross the 
Detroit River we are on English soil. There we see the 
Custom house with the arms of Great Britain upon it. 
There we see the red-coats passing up and down with the 
uniform of Great Britain. There we see floating over 



120 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, £>.D. 



public buildings the British flag, and in vessels lying in 
the haven the British streamer. We know that we are in 
a part of the kingdom of Great Britain over which the 
English Sovereign, and not the American President, 
rules. Now, when Christ sent out two disciples at a time, 
He said, " Go and preach, saying, The kingdom of 
heaven is among you." Why ? Because there was a 
little slice of the kingdom that went on those four legs. 
Wherever those disciples, in whose hearts Jesus Christ 
was enshrined and enthroned as king, went, there was 
a little colony of the universal kingdom walking among 
men. It is a sweet conception of the kingdom of God. 
" The kingdom of God is within you." Of course, it is, 
if you are a child of God. Your heart is a colony of tne 
kingdom, and the universal king reigns there. I would 
He reigned more undisputed and alone. 

Now, to seek the kingdom of God is to seek its exten- 
sion. When you come where the flag of the devil is, and 
the coat of arms of the devil is, and the soldiers of the 
devil in their uniform, try to get the flag down from the 
masthead and down from the flagstaff, and put the banner 
of the Cross in its place. You try to get the uniform off 
of the soldiers and servants of the devil, and get the 
blood-red uniform of the kingdom of Christ upon you. 
You try to get the crest of arms of the heavenly kingdom, 
marked by the seal of the Spirit everywhere, where the 
devil's insignia are found. That is seeking the kingdom 
of God. You come across a poor outcast, a drunkard, 
a harlot, someone who is living in sin. Try and displace 
Satan as the ruling prince in that soul, and get the 
Prince of princes and the King of kings into that heart 
to rule, and you are seeking the kingdom of God. Why, 
the quest is as plain as day, and there is nothing else 
worth seeking. Even if you try to feed the hungry and 
clothe the naked, do it as Christ did, that your ministry 



TH£ SOUL'S FIRST QUEST m 



to the body may be the preparation for your ministry 
to the soul. 

Now, what is it to seek God's righteousness? The ■ 
righteousness of God means in the Gospel according to 
Matthew, and in the Sermon on the Mount, not what it 
means in Romans — a method of justification. It means 
adherence and conformity to the right. It is God-like- 
ness. How am I to seek the righteousness of God, and 
to incorporate it in my life? That is what makes me a 
subject of the King, and an honour to the King; and 
so this simple text of Scripture bids us, first of all, seek 
to have the righteousness of God embodied in myself, 
and then, next, seek to have that same righteousness of 
God embodied in other people, to become myself a 
subject and servant of the King of kings, and then to 
try to make everybody with whom I come into contact a 
subject and servant of the same King of kings. And if 
you can tell me anything that can be put into words that 
is more worth making the first object of thought, and of 
love, and of choice than this, I should like to know what 
it is. 

"First" First in time. What a blessed thing it is 
when a little child begins to serve God as a child. The 
trouble is that, though we may be saved by a repentance 
in after life, it is at a bitter cost. The world and the 
flesh and the devil come in and pre-occupy us, and then 
Jesus Christ can only occupy us as these enemies are 
first displaced, like the Canaanites when the children of 
Israel went into Palestine. But when the little child 
begins to serve God before the heart, and mind, and 
choice, and life have been occupied with things that 
perish, there is very little displacement necessary in com- 
parison. The Lord Jesus, instead of coming, as He did to 
the inn at Bethlehem, and finding no room and being 
crowded into a corner, finds a heart that as yet is com- 



122 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D» 



paratively open, and He takes possession ; and how many 
little children like Samuel, and John the Baptist, and 
Timothy, born of godly parents and bred of godly 
parents, and from a child knowing the Scriptures, have 
grown to be men and women magnificently furnished for 
all good works, and bearing comparatively few scars of 
sin, and knowing comparatively few of the evil habits that 
have been abandoned, coming up from behind, like the 
Egyptians from Egypt, to drag back into the slavery 
into which one once fell. Let us seek first the kingdom 
of God. Seek it early in life if you are in youth. Seek 
it at once, wherever you are in the point of your human 
pilgrimage; and from this time forth, whatever, it may 
have been hitherto with you, let it be primary and not 
secondary, supreme and not subordinate. Take up your 
thought with the enamouring vision of God's righteous- 
ness in your soul and God's kingdom in this world. Let 
your love, and your conscience, and your will go out in 
one great controlling, absorbing purpose that Christ 
shall be magnified in your body, whether it be by life or 
by death. 



An Incomparable Pardon 



"Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and 
passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage ? He 
retaineth not His anger for ever, because He delighteth in mercy. 
He will turn again ; He will have compassion upon us ; He 
will subdue our iniquities ; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into 
the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, 
and the mercy to Abraham, which Thou hast sworn unto our 
fathers from the days of old." — <JXCicah vii. 18 — 20. 

THIS is a little poem of twelve lines in the 
Hebrew. It is one of the most exquisite things 
to be found in the entire Old Testament, and 
would alone be sufficient to prove that this Bible is the 
Word of God, for there is nothing like it in all the litera- 
ture of man. The opening sentence of this poem gives 
us a hint as to what is to follow. " Who a God like unto 
Thee ? " If you will allow me I will give a little different 
translation of this poem, which will serve if you will put 
it alongside of the other, as a kind of a commentary 
upon it. 

" Who a God like unto Thee ? " That is the subject of 
the poem. And now the poem describes ihe wonders of 
this God, which leads the prophet Micah *o exclaim, 
" Who is a God like unto Thee, who pardoneth iniquity, 
who passeth over the transgression of the remnant of His 
heritage ? He retaineth not for ever His holy anger, for 

123 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



in mercy He delighteth. Upon us He will once more 
have compassion. Our iniquities He will subdue. And 
Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. 
He will perform to Jacob truth, to Abraham mercy, which 
to our fathers Thou hast sworn from the days of old." 

Now, those of you who are accustomed to look most 
carefully into the structure of Scripture will observe 
another instance here, where ten particulars constitute 
completeness. This is an attempt on the part of an 
inspired writer to present at one complete view the 
marvels of God's forgiving grace; and he gives us ten 
statements following his opening exclamation, and these 
ten statements embrace a revelation of the pardoning 
grace of God, so wonderful that, as I have already said, 
this poem alone would suffice to show that no one could 
have written the description unless he was inspired of 
God. Look in all the sacred books of the ancients, in all 
the philosophies of religious teachers in India, and 
Persia, and China, and the isles of the sea. You will 
find nothing like this. 

You will notice, if you compare closely verse with verse 
here, that we have four things brought out in a very 
remarkable degree. The whole poem is full of the fact 
of God's pardon, but there are three things that are 
added to the declaration of that fact. The first is the 
fulness of that pardon ; the second is the freeness of that 
pardon ; and the third is the faithfulness of that pardon. 

As to the fact of this pardon. From ancient times God 
has gloried in the display of His mercy, as we may see 
in the Book of Exodus, where Moses said, " Show me, I 
beseech Thee, Thy glory, " God said, " I will make all 
My goodness to pass before thee." And then he pro- 
claimed the name of the Lord; and in ten particulars 
again he showed forth that the name was associated with 
the glory of forgiving grace — merciful, gracious, slow to 



AN INCOMPARABLE PARDON 125 



anger, long suffering, abundant in goodness, abundant 
in truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, sin, and yet, 
with all this, free from all guilt Himself, uncompromising 
with iniquity, or having any accomplice among sinners, 
or complicity with their sin. He proclaimed the name 
and the character of Jehovah in those ten things that all 
had to do with' Him as a forgiving Jehovah. 

Now let us look at the completeness of this pardon. 
"Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity 
and passeth by " (or " passeth over ") " the transgression 
of the remnant of His heritage? " We never find the 
words " passing over " in the Old Testament without at 
once being reminded of the Passover. Micah, no doubt, 
is referring to the Passover here. It is the same word 
in the original, and it unquestionably refers to that won- 
derful act of grace in which God, seeing the blood on the 
blood-stained doorposts, behind which the children of 
Israel were hiding when the angel of His wrath was 
commissioned to pass by, passed over the houses of the 
Israelites, and visited judgment upon the Egyptians ; and 
so, when Micah is crying out, "Who is a God like unto 
Thee? " I have no doubt that he thought of that same 
expression that was used in the 15th chapter of Exodus 
at the nth verse. When God had delivered Israel by 
this blood on the doorposts, and then had carried them 
across the Red Sea, and made them to escape from their 
enemies, in that wonderful song that Moses and the chil- 
dren of Israel sang, we find this same expression, "Who 
is like unto Thee?" It is the ntH verse of the 15th' 
chapter. "Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the 
gods? " And so, when Micah cried out, w Who is a god 
like unto Thee? " he could not forget that at the shores 
of the Red Sea that same exclamation came from the 
lips of Moses and the children of Israel in that triumphant 
scene. 



126 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



Now, how was tKe glory of God shown in forgiving 
grace at the time of the Passover ? I have already said 
that the Passover was a token and an example of redemp- 
tion by blood : the slain lamb, the hyssop steeped in the 
blood of the lamb, the blood sprinkled on the right-hand 
side and the upper side, and then the children of Israel 
gathering in their houses that were thus marked with the 
sign of the blood, and keeping the Passover while the 
angel of wrath" passed over them. 

But there is another reference to the Passover here, in 
this same poem of Micah, which I think is even more 
wonderful than that. " He will turn again ; He will have 
compassion upon us." That is a^second act of compas- 
sion. The first act of compassion was passing by the 
children of Israel on account of the blood ; but there was 
another act of compassion, and another Passover. The 
first Passover was the angel passing over the houses of 
the Israelites ; but the next Passover was the children of 
Israel passing over the Red Sea; and so to the whole 
book of Exodus that one word " Passover " is the key : 
God passing over His people, and His people passing 
over out of Egypt on their way to tKe promised land. 

Now what happened in the second Passover, the pass- 
ing over of the Red Sea? The Egyptians came up 
behind the children of Israel, to draw them back into 
their bondage and slavery. And after God had carried 
His people across, as on dry land, and the Egyptians 
essayed to follow them through this open path, with the 
wall of waters on each side, God told Moses to throw 
out his arm once more, with the rod of God in his hand, 
and the waters came back and overwhelmed the Egyp- 
tians, and drowned them in the depths of the sea, so that 
there was not one of them left. 

Now see here. "Who is a God like unto Thee? In 
the first place, Thou dost pardon iniquity and pass over 



AN INCOMPARABLE PARDON 127 



the blood-stained houses of Thy believing people. But 
then Thou dost again turn and have compassion upon us. 
Thou dost subdue our iniquities and cast all our sins into 
the depths of the sea." Even after a man has found 
refuge in Jesus Christ, and after he has gone behind the 
blood-stained door, and has claimed mercy and grace 
from God because he takes' refuge in Christ, how often 
his sins come up behind him, his old habits, the remem- 
brance of his past iniquities, and they try to drag him 
back into the old bondage of slavery ; and then God has 
a second act of compassion ready for the poor sinner. 
He drowns his sins in the depths of the sea; He subdues 
his iniquity. As once He justified him by faith, so now 
He sanctifies him by faith. As once He took away the 
penalty of sin when the angel of wrath would have 
destroyed him, so now He takes away the power of sin, 
and subdues iniquity, and casts sin into the depths of trie 
sea, just as the Egyptians were drowned before the very 
eyes of the children of Israel. Do you not see how 
Micah, writing this sublime poem, calls up the story of 
the children of Israel, and makes it a lesson for all ages 
for poor sinners that need a Saviour — first, from the 
penalty of sin, second, from the power of sin, and, third, 
from the presence of sin ? And God will not give up the 
work until He has not only destroyed the power of your 
old sins, but has banished the very presence of it from 
you and made you fully and completely redeemed. 

And now there is another thought here. There is 
not only the fact of pardon and the fulness of pardon, 
which is followed even by purification, but there is the 
thought of freeness. When we talk of free pardon, we 
mean a pardon that cannot be bought, and for which 
we have nothing to do in order to obtain it ; something 
that is an absolutely free and gracious gift. Now, free- 
ness has, tQ 4o with large resources. Suppose, for 



128 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



instance, that there was a famine in a city, and I were a 
man of wealth and generosity, and were trying to relieve 
the famine. If I had but a comparatively small amount 
of wealth, then, in distributing to distressed people, my 
money would soon be exhausted. But suppose that I 
had the riches of royalty at the back of me, millions and 
millions and millions of pounds sterling. Then I could 
give freely, since I could not exhaust myself. Now, the 
wonder about God is that He is so full of grace that He 
can give as much as He wills, and as much as the sinner 
needs, and He has got just as much as He had before He 
began to give. It is inexhaustible. Why, you might 
sooner exhaust the light of the sun that has shone for 
countless years on this planet, and which is just as 
bright and just as warm as ever. You might easier 
exhaust the resources of the sun than exhaust the re- 
sources of God. I think that we are taught this here. 

Why does He forgive ? Because of anything in you ? 
Not at all. Because there is any constraint or compul- 
sion ? Not at all. The only reason why God forgives 
is because He delights to forgive. This is a great truth, 
is it not? "We love Him because He %st loved us." 
He loved us first. " God commends 1 His love to us, in 
that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." God 
commends His love to us in that, while we were yet 
enemies, we were reconciled to Him by the death of His 
Son. So freely does He love that He loves without 
regard to our deserts. So freely does He love that He 
loves without regard to our loving Him. He loves us 
when we hate Him; He loves us when we are sinners; 
He loves us when we are depraved and reject the very 
love that He offers us. He forgives like a God. But 
there never was another God of whom, men knew, or 
thought that they knew, that had any such grace as this.' 
It is free because He delights. When you do a thing 



AN INCOMPARABLE PARDON 



out of delight, you do it, as we say, spontaneously. It 
is like the gushing forth of a spring that must relieve its 
own fulness. The only reason why a spring flows out is 
because it is full. That is the only reason. It is not 
because you make a channel for it. It will make its own 
channel. It is not because you need to have your wants 
supplied. The spring must flow because it has a want 
of its own. Its want is a vent, a channel, room to flow. 
God loves because He must love. He forgives because 
He delights in mercy. And that is what makes the love 
of God and the forgiveness of sin so free, and it is one 
reason why it is so full. Because He delights in mercy 
He glories in forgiveness, in reconciling, in restoring. 

Now I want to pass to something which is not quite so 
plain. The faithfulness of God is here taught us. Have 
you ever noticed the two words that are used here ? You 
know that we are in an age when there is a great deal of 
controversy as to whether the words of Holy Scripture, 
as well as the thoughts of Holy Scripture, are directed of 
God. I have not any more doubt of it than I have of 
my own existence, but there are people who are affected 
by the atmosphere of unbelief that is surrounding us; 
and I want to strengthen even the weak faith of God's 
disciples. And I want to call your attention here once 
more to the evident care that has been taken by the Spirit 
with the words used. You notice, "Thou wilt perform 
truth to Jacob, and mercy to Abraham." Now, why was 
it not "mercy to Abraham," and "mercy to Jacob""? 
There is some reason why the word is "mercy " as applied 
to Abraham. I think I can show that very easily, 
although it is a new thought to me, a new discovery to 
me. When God appeared to Abraham, and said, " I will 
be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee, in all their 
generations, for an everlasting covenant," it was pure 
and simple mercy, was it not? Abraham had no claim 

K 



ARTHUR f. PIERSON, D.D. 



on God for such great favour as was shown him. God, 
simply because He delighted in mercy, because He 
wanted to do a good thing and a kindness to Abraham, 
made a covenant with Abraham. But observe that, just 
the moment that God had made that covenant, then it 
became not only a matter of mercy to keep His covenant, 
but a matter of truth. After He had given His promise, 
after He had pledged His word, then God (I may say it 
reverently) had no choice. His word had gone forth, 
and that was the end of it. What was mercy to Abraham 
became truth to Jacob. When God said to Abraham, " I 
will do good to thee and thy seed after thee," Jacob could 
claim that promise that God had spoken to Abraham, 
and could say, " Lord, I rely not only on Thy grace, as 
Abraham did, but on Thy truth, for Thou hast spoken 
this word, and Thy word can never fail " ; and, just as 
every Bible student does, I keep gathering on every page 
of the Word of God new proof every day that God over- 
saw the very language in which His grace was proclaimed 
to the children of men. 

I want to make this plain to you — that what was mercy 
to Abraham was truth to Jacob ; that what was mercy to 
the first sinner becomes truth to you who take God at His 
word and claim the promises. I think that it is in the 
life of the Earl of Shaftesbury — I am not quite sure — 
that there is a beautiful story about a great Englishman 
—I am not sure that it was not Lord Palmerston. At 
any rate, it was a man high in the confidence of the 
public, and in an official position, who was going along 
on one of the outskirts of London one day, and just as 
he was passing over a bridge there was a little girl that 
was going along with a vessel — I think it was a pitcher— 
in which she had, perhaps, a quart of milk, and she 
stumbled and fell, and spilt the milk and broke the 
pitcher, and the little creature was in great trouble. She 



AN INCOMPARABLE PARDON 



was afraid that when she got home she would not get a 
very good welcome, and that she might be punished, as 
a great many children are punished for accidents by an 
impatient mother. She began to cry bitterly, and this 
gentleman of high position went up to her and said, " My 
dear, don't cry; don't cry. I have not any change with 
me now, but I will meet you here to-morrow at twelve 
o'clock on this bridge, and I will give you a shilling to 
buy another pitcher with and some more milk." He 
went on to his business or his calling. The next day he 
was in a large company of gentlemen called on special 
business, and the hour approached in which he had pro- 
mised to meet that little girl, and he said, "Gentlemen, 
I have an engagement." "Oh, but there is important 
business going on, sir." " I cannot help it. I have a 
previous engagement made yesterday. I must go and 
take care of the engagement." And he went, punctual 
to the minute, with the shilling ready, and found the 
little girl there, tears dried, confident that the gentleman 
who had said that he would meet her would be there with 
his shilling. So he sent the little girl away to her home 
with money to get another pitcher and replace the lost 
milk. 

Now, w T hen he made that promise, it was simply 
grace, was it not? But, after he had made it, it was 
truth. He was bound to do w T hat he had said. He would 
have had no right to awaken an expectation that he would 
not fulfil, and he felt himself bound in honour to do 
what he had said, though there was no obligation in the 
first instance for him to make the promise. So, when 
Abraham broke his pitcher and spilt his milk — when 
Abraham had lost all claim on God through his sin, and 
his character was shattered, and there w 7 as no hope for 
him in himself, the gracious God met him in the way, 
and said, " I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D, 



thee, in all their generations, for an everlasting cove- 
nant." There was no claim on God to replace the 
shattered character, but, when God had said that, then 
He was bound, and what was, in the first place, mercy 
became, in the second place, truth. 

And I am glad to say that one Testament illustrates 
another. If you turn to the ist Epistle of John, first 
chapter, ninth verse, you will read these remarkable 
words : " If we confess our sin He is faithful and just to 
forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
ness." What remarkable words. Talk about u faithful- 
ness " and "justice" in forgiving sin? Why, it is the 
faithfulness of God and the justice of God that makes 
the sinner afraid. That is what makes the sinner 
troubled at His presence, because God has said, "The 
soul that sinneth, it shall die " — because God has said, 
"lama just God, and will by no means clear the guilty." 
And so the trembling sinner comes before a faithful God 
and a just God, and he says, "How shall I meet with 
God in peace? " But now, when God has said that if 
you confess your sins and forsake your sins, you shall 
find mercy, the same faithfulness which, before He pro- 
mised that grace, might have compelled the loss of your 
soul, and the same justice which, before He made that 
promise, imperilled your own welfare, are arrayed on 
your side, for God has said that, if you confess and 
forsake your sin, you shall find forgiveness, and His 
faithfulness to His word compels Him to forgive, and 
His sense of justice and righteousness compels Him to 
be true to the expectation of a believing soul. 

The same thing is taught in another form in that same 
epistle, the ist Epistle of John : "If any man believe not 
God, he hath made Him a liar." See how God stimulates 
the weak faith of His children, and see how He encour- 
ages the penitent and trembling sinner to trust. " Why," 



AN INCOMPARABLE PARDON 133 



He says, "so far from its being a humility that pleases 
men when you doubt My word and My forgiving grace, 
you are really making Me a liar." But God challenges 
you, as though He wanted you to be jealous for His 
truth. God challenges you to believe that He will for- 
give your sin, if you confess it and forsake it, because, 
if you do not believe it, you are casting doubt on the 
truthfulness of God. And I repeat, I do not think that, 
in the whole Bible from the first chapter of Genesis to 
the last chapter of Revelation, we have got so marvellous 
a picture of the forgiving grace of God as we have got 
in this little poem of twelve lines from the prophet Micah 
The fact of pardon, the fulness of pardon, that not onl) 
passes over transgression, but subdues transgression, 
and casts our sins into the depths of the seas, where 
they no longer can come up to trouble us, and drag us 
back to old habits ; and not only so, but there is a freeness 
that is only possible to one that delights to forgive and 
pardon ; and, not only so, but a faithfulness that makes 
it necessary that God should forgive, because He has 
once said that He would forgive, and makes the very 
mercy of God now join hands with truth for the reclama- 
tion and restoration of the sinner. "Mercy and truth 
are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed 
each other." 

Well, but some of you, perhaps, think, " If God is so 
forgiving, why does not He forgive me out and out, 
without my confessing my sin and forsaking my sin? 
If God is so very gracious that He delights in mercy, 
why are there any conditions to mercy ? Why does He 
not just proclaim an amnesty of full and free and absolute 
pardon of the rebellious subjects of His government, 
instead of commanding me to repent of my sin and for- 
sake my sin in order to find mercy ? " Why, it is not 
safe for God to forgive an unrepenting sinner. Do you 



t34 ARTHUR T. Pl£R"SON, D.D. 



know that pardon is not always a good thing ? Pardon 
may set a premium on crime. Pardon may help to make 
criminals and to encourage criminals. There is a fine 
illustration of this in America. Some years ago, down 
in Frankfort, Kentucky, there was a man that had killed 
another man in a fit of passion, and, although he was 
not sentenced to the gallows, he was sentenced to a long 
term of imprisonment. There was an old schoolmate of 
his that had shown great bravery in rescuing from a 
wreck some twenty persons, and the legislature of Ken- 
tucky were so much in admiration of his heroism that 
they passed a resolution of thanks to this man as an 
example of remarkable heroism, and he took advantage 
of this fact to go to the governor, and say that there 
was a disposition to show a sort of recognition of what 
he had done in rescuing many other people : would not 
the governor grant a pardon to that old schoolmate of 
his, who, in a moment of passion, had struck down a 
fellow human being? And the Government was pleased 
to grant the pardon, and gave the man the work of 
taking the pardon and announcing it to his old friend 
who was held in the cell as guilty of murder. When he 
went there, he said nothing about having the pardon, but 
he turned to his friend, and said, " Now, John, suppose 
you should get out of the prison, what would be the first 
thing you would do ? " "I would shoot the chief witness 
against me in my trial, and then I would go and shoot 
the judge that sentenced me." And the man, with a 
sorrowful heart, turned round and took the pardon back 
to the governor, and said, " I could not deliver the 
pardon to that man." It would have been an iniquity if 
he had given the pardon to that man . The man was not 
in a fit state to be pardoned. He had not the preparation 
for the reception of pardon, and the proper use of 
pardon . 



AN INCOMPARABLE PARDON 135 



Now, God says to you that He is infinitely ready to 
forgive, but there are some conditions in you which make 
it possible that you shall receive the pardon and make a 
proper use of the pardon, and the conditions are very 
simple — that if you confess and forsake sin, you shall find 
mercy. He does not ask you to make reparation for it. 
You can make no reparation to Him, inough you may 
possibly make some restitution to men that you have 
wronged. He does not ask you to do anything to expiate 
your sin. He does not ask you to keep up righteous acts 
of self-denial, in order to make forgiveness possible ; but 
He asks you to take a position as a guilty sinner, and 
say, " Lord, I have sinned against heaven, and in Thy 
sight, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son." 
He does ask you that you will turn away from the fact 
of your iniquity, and show a disposition henceforth to 
obey the God that you have wronged, and whom, if it 
were possible, you would have ruined. There is no lack 
of forgiving grace in God ; but He cannot be an accom- 
plice of your sin, and He cannot set a premium on your 
iniquity. 

I would say to you in the name of God, I do not care 
what your sin is; I do not care how deep its dye; 
I do not care how long continued it has been ; if you 
will humbly and penitently confess your sin, and, by 
the grace of God, resolutely foresake it, you shall find 
all that this passage of Scripture means. He will pardon 
your iniquity ; He will pass over your transgression ; He 
will subdue your sins; He will put them in the depths 
of the sea; and He will show Himself a faithful and 
a just God in performing as truth to you what, to the 
first sinner, was simply mercy. 

Now, is it not wonderful how in this precious Bible 
we find sin and salvation side by side ? You will remem- 
ber how in the West Indies there is a poisonous tree, 



136 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



that has a fruit something like a golden pippin, but 
which is so very poisonous that the very juice when it 
falls on the skin blisters it. You will never find in the 
West Indies this poisonous tree but you will find close 
by it a white wood tree, or a fig tree, the sap of which 
has such remarkable power that, if applied immediately 
over the sap that comes on the human body from the 
tree in question, it would completely antidote the poison. 
And so here is the awful tree of human sin. You will 
find no protection in this wicked world and in your own 
heart, but, close by the fruit of the tree that brings fall 
and disaster, there is the cross of Jesus Christ, and the 
precious blood shed on that tree of curse is the perfect 
antidote for all the poison and disaster of sin. Who of 
you will come to Jesus Christ and receive full and free 
pardon, confessing your sin, forsaking your sin, and 
finding God, than whom there can be none greater, and 
like unto whom there is none other ? 



VI 



An Impossible Discrimination 

" For there is no difference."— T^otn. iii. 22. 

IF there is any text in the Bible against which unbeliev- 
ing souls fight, it is this text. They say, "There 
is a difference. There is a difference between 
myself and an outrageous criminal. I am a respectable 
man and a citizen. I am a kind husband and a father, 
and a good neighbour, and an honest man. Now, 
it is manifest that there is a difference between me and 
the rascal, the scamp, the curse to society, that has to 
be locked up in a cell, or swung off the gallow 7 s because 
society must get rid of him as a common nuisance." But 
it must be noticed that the Bible does not dispute that 
there is a difference in these respects between men. In 
fact, the Bible concedes the difference when our Lord 
says in the twelfth chapter of Luke that he that knew 
his Lord's will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many 
stripes; but he that did things contrary to his Master's 
will, not knowing that will — that is, not having a revela- 
tion of it — shall be beaten with few stripes. You will 
observe that our Lord Himself concedes two things, 
first, that there is a difference in quality, and, secondly, 
that there is a difference in punishment. 

Sin is not always as flagrant and as outrageous in one 
man as in another man, or in the same man at the different 
times of his life, and under different forms of provocation 
and temptation. And, again, our Lord concedes this 

137 



i 3 8 ARTHUR t. PiERSON, D.t). 



difference when He says of the Pharisees and the Scribes, 
that are hypocrites, that, knowing what their duty is, do 
it not, and, having the key of knowledge, not only enter 
not in themselves, but suffer not those that would enter to 
have access to knowledge, that they shall receive the 
greater damnation. So there is not only a difference in 
the degrees of sin and of guilt, but there are different 
steps in hell. There is a less damnation and a greater 
damnation, so that the antagonism which the sinner has 
to the doctrine which he supposes to be here taught is a 
mistaken antagonism. God never said that all men were 
sinners alike, but He says that all men were alike sinners ; 
and there is a great deal of difference between those two 
statements. All men do not sin in the same form and 
with the same degree of guilt and aggravation and 
exposure to poverty; but there is no difference in this 
fact, that all have sinned and come short of the glory 
of God. The fact of sin, the fact of guilt, the fact of 
condemnation, is a universal fact, and there is no differ- 
ence between men as to the fact of sin, and guilt, and 
penalty, and wrath. 

Now, while all this is true, there is a deeper truth here 
than this, and that truth I would seek to emphasise. 
While the Bible does not deny that there is a difference 
between men in the degrees of their guiltiness and in 
the degrees of their condemnation, let us observe that the 
difference is not so great as men commonly think, nor is 
the difference owing, as men often think, so much to 
what is in themselves as to the restraints by which God 
surrounds one and withholds him from sin. 

I believe that there can be no great salvation that does 
not reach a great sin, and that there can be no great 
consciousness of what Christ is to the soul unless there be 
first a great consciousness of what the soul is in its 
extreme need of Christ; and because, perhaps, in these 



AN IMPOSSIBLE DISCRIMINATION 139 



days there is a tendency to refine away the guilt of sin, 
to make sin a misfortune, a kind of fall forward, a kind 
of necessity to moral progress — a tendency to talk of 
sin as a kind of moral disease that therefore ought to 
be treated with compassion and forbearance, I believe 
that it is necessary to bring before men something with 
regard to the guiltiness of sin, and that we should be 
able to get them away from looking at sin as a mere 
misfortune, and compel them to face the fact that sin 
implies voluntary departure from God, voluntary rebel- 
lion against God, and a voluntary attempt, as far as the 
sinner goes, to cast down God from the throne of His 
excellence. 

Prolonged meditation on this point has satisfied my 
own mind — and I believe would satisfy any candid mind 
— that the differences that men see in sinners are not, 
after all, as great as they often appear. Let us try to 
get some conception of what it is in which the extreme 
guilt of sin consists. 

Now, what is sin ? I think that you will agree with 
me that it has been very well defined in the Confession of 
Faith which declares that sin is not only a transgression 
of the law of God, but is any want of conformity unto 
the will of God. That definition is really drawn from 
the Holy Scriptures. James tells us that sin is a trans- 
gression of the law, but we are told in this very text that 
it is sin to come short of the glory of God; either to 
walk over God's law, disregarding its limits, or to be 
careless of the fulfilment of the law as a rule of duty. 
Those are two sorts or aspects of sin. 

Whenever a man sins, no matter how small the sin is 
in his own sight, or how insignificant the sin may be in 
the sight of his fellow-men, he breaks the whole law 
because of the unity of the law. Have you ever noticed 
that expression of our Lord when He was asked to give 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



the great commandment of the law? He said, "The 
great commandment of the law is this. Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. 
This is the first and great commandment. And the 
second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
thyself." Now, what did Christ mean by saying that 
the second commandment was like unto the first? Just 
what I mean if I say that the left hand is like unto the 
right, or that the left eye is like unto the right eye, or 
the left ear like unto the right ear. These two hands are 
manifestly meant to go together on one body, and to 
work together in one trade, to handle together the same 
implements, and, by their united action, to accomplish a 
common result. The two eyes are placed in the head in 
order to perfect vision. If I had but one eye my vision 
would be imperfect. I command objects on my right side 
with the right eye, and on the left side with the left eye. 
I command sounds with the right ear on the right side, 
and with the left ear on the left side, and, therefore, with- 
out either of these members on either side of the body, 
my body is imperfect — my vision or my hearing, what- 
ever it may be, without its opposite and corresponding 
members. 

Now, these two laws of God, summed up by 
Christ in this fashion, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God," and "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," 
are like, just as the hands, the eyes, the ears are like. 
They stand over against each other. One is the right 
hand of the law, and the other is its left hand. One is 
the right eye of the law, and the other is the left eye, and 
without either of these laws you have not a perfect law. 
It is like a defective vision. It is like an imperfect body. 
It is like something in which the completeness is sacri- 
ficed by a serious and fatal lack. Not only does He mean 



AN IMPOSSIBLE DISCRIMINATION 141 



that the two laws are alike in this, that the ruling word of 
both is love, and that the object in both is outside of one's 
self, but He means that they are like in this which I have 
already intimated : they belong together as parts of one 
absolutely perfect law, and you can no more have a per- 
fect law without both of them than you can have a perfect 
sphere with only a half sphere ; and, if we had the wisdom 
and the knowledge and the understanding to trace them, 
we could begin at the first commandment, and we could 
tell what must come in the other nine of them from the 
substance of the first. 

I desire particularly to get this thought imbedded in 
your minds, in your deepest convictions and persuasions 
— that the law is a unit, and therefore that a sin, however 
small, because it assaults the law, assaults the law as a 
unit. Whenever a man breaks one commandment he 
breaks the whole law, because the law is not cut up into 
a dozen laws, but it consists of one great code in which 
each particular commandment is a single aspect or feature 
of the code. You turn the great sphere round, and there 
strikes your eye a portion or segment of the sphere. That 
is one law. You turn it a little further, and there is 
another segment. That is another law. You turn it a 
little further, and there is another, and that is another 
law. So each law constitutes a part and portion of one 
perfect sphere that could not be perfect without each law. 

Now, suppose we advance a step further. Sin not only 
breaks the law as a unit, but sin disputes the authority 
that lies back of the law. The authority is one authority. 
See what James says : " He that in one point offends is 
guilty of all." Why ? " For He that said, * Do not com- 
mit adultery,' says also, * Do not kill.' " If, therefore, 
thou commit one of these sins and not the other, thou art 
still disregarding the authority that lies back of both 
commands. 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



What does that mean ? What is obedience ? Obedi- 
ence is submission to authority. I obey, not when I do 
that which is commanded, but when I do that which is 
commanded for the sake of the authority of Him that 
commanded it. Look in our families. Suppose that here 
is a law of the family. A person in this house is ill, and 
it is necessary that there should be no disturbance of the 
nervous system of the sick patient, and so the father says 
to his children, " I want you whenever you come into this 
house from your school not to make a noise un- 
necessarily, not to run up and down these stairs, or 
through these halls, not to fling your books down in a 
careless way, and to make no unnecessary noise, lest you 
disturb the sick one, who is very sensitive to every sound 
and noise that is unnecessary." Now, suppose the child 
comes into the house under these circumstances, and goes 
softly through the house without the slightest thought or 
regard to the authority of the father. There is no obedi- 
ence there. There is the accidental conformity, but there 
is no obedience. But suppose, on the other hand, the 
child comes in and thinks of the father's words, and 
guides all the motions that are made after entering the 
door and in entering the door on account of what has 
been spoken of the father. That is obedience. We often 
think that a conformity to law is obedience. Not so. A 
conformity to a law is only obedience when I conform 
for the sake of Him that said, "Thou shalt do this," or 
"Thou shalt not do that." That is to say, obedience is 
submitting my will to the will of one that has the right 
and the authority to command. 

Now, sin consists in this, not simply that I break 
a law, but that I break the authority of the law- 
giver. God says, "Thou shalt not," and I do it. 
What is that but my will saying, " I shall " ? 
God says, "Thou shalt," and I do it not. What is that 



AN IMPOSSIBLE DISCRIMINATION 143 



but my will saying " I shall not " ? And what does that 
mean? Why, the significance of that offence does not 
consist in the fact that it is a wrong things but it consists 
in the fact that I bring my will into conflict with the will 
of God, and fling myself on the bosses of Jehovah's 
buckler. And the moment that we see this, that moment 
shall we see that what we call the littleness or the great- 
ness of a sin has nothing to do with it — nothing to do 
with it. The question is, "Have I regarded the sacred- 
ness of God's authority?" If the sacredness of that 
authority could be represented by a piece of delicate 
porcelain, sacred because God made it, sacred because 
He values it, sacred because it represents Him, do you 
not think that it is as flagrant an attack on the sacredness 
of God if I break off a small corner from that porcelain 
pattern, as if I dash it into fragments? Is it not the 
same disregard of sacredness ? Is it not the same disre- 
gard of the divine ? Is it not the same disregard of that 
which God values if I dash a corner off that authority as 
if I dash the authority into pieces at its very centre? 

I do not know why this should not appear plain to other 
men. It is as plain to me as it can possibly be. What 
God resents in sin is not the fact that it is a big sin as men 
call it, or a little sin as men call it, but that the sinner 
strikes at God. And do you not see that if sin is a break- 
ing of law and a breaking of authority, the principle by 
which the man commits the smallest sin is the same prin- 
ciple by which he commits the biggest sin. Do you not 
see that any sin is a breaking of law and a disputing of 
authority with God, and all you have to do is to give a 
sinner adequate temptation to commit a big sin, adequate 
opportunity to commit a big sin, adequate provocation 
to commit a big sin, and adequate time to become a 
sufficiently daring sinner to commit a big sin, and there 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



is not a sin from the bottom to the top of the whole round 
of transgressions which that man would not commit. 

Now, again, the difference between sin and sin is far 
less than we are apt to think, because sin, after all, is 
only a germ. Have you ever noticed that the Bible treats 
" sin " in the singular, different from " sins " in the 
plural ? Sin in the singular represents the root ; sins in 
the plural represent the fruits that grow out of that root. 
Which is the more important, the sins or the sin ? Which 
is the more important, the fruits or the root? Which 
makes the fruit possible? Now, what I think that the 
Bible teaches everywhere from beginning to end about 
sin is that God cares very little about the fruit that grows 
on the bough, but what He specially cares for is the root 
which makes that bough possible and the fruits on it pos- 
sible. That is to say, you may pluck the fruit from that 
bough, but it will bring forth others. But, if you can 
get that root out of the soul, you destroy sin altogether. 
And so the grace of God strikes, not at the boughs with 
their fruit first, but at the roots first of all. Reformation 
begins with the boughs, and never gets to the root at 
all. Reformation plucks the apples of Sodom off the 
boughs of the tree of evil, and thinks the man is better 
because there are not so many fruits on the tree. But 
regeneration begins in the heart, and strikes at the root 
which makes sin possible. 

If you go down to the valley of the Nile, and 
find the crocodile eggs, and crush the eggs, you 
have crushed as many crocodiles as you have 
crushed eggs. If you in your travels through the country 
burst an acorn, and make it impossible that it shall sprout, 
the oak is crushed in the acorn. And sin is so terrible 
because it is the egg out of which the crocodile comes, 
and if you can crush the egg you Have crushed the croco- 
dile; and if the egg remains, the germ of the crocodile 



AN IMPOSSIBLE DISCRIMINATION 145 



is in the crocodile's eggs. That is to say, the thing that 
is terrible about sin is that sin is that from which can 
spring in time every possible form of transgression, or 
outrage, or rebellion against Almighty God. 

I think that if we properly take in these great truths 
we shall understand some of the things that are very 
mysterious to us otherwise. We shall understand how 
it is that God judges differently from the way in which 
man judges. Suppose, for instance, that here is a dying 
thief on the cross. He has lived an abominable life. He 
has been an outrager of property. He has, perhaps, 
been a murderer as well as a robber. He looks to Christ 
in the dying hour, and he says, "Lord, remember me 
when Thou comest into Thy kingdom " ; and Jesus says, 
"To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." And yet 
here is a man that dies like the rich man of whom we 
read in the sixteenth of Luke, and I want you to notice 
that there is not a single word said against him in the six- 
teenth chapter of Luke in the way of charging him with 
inhumanity. In all the pictures that have been drawn 
of the rich man, there have been a great many colours 
put in that were not put in by the Holy Spirit. He 
has been represented as allowing Lazarus to lie at his 
gate and cry in vain for the crumbs that fell from his 
table; but the Bible does not say that Lazarus cried in 
vain. We have been taught sometimes to think of the 
rich man as though the dogs were more compassionate 
than he; but the Bible does not say so. We are not 
told in the Bible that Lazarus ever appealed for help 
without being abundantly fed. We are not told that 
the rich man was so mean, and so avaricious, and so 
selfish that he looked on the calamities and misfortunes 
of his neighbours without any response. Why, he 
might have been a first-class giver, and his name might 
have been at the very top of the list of the people who 

L 



t 4 6 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



gave benevolently in the district in which he dwelt. 
Nobody knows. The only thing that is charged against 
the rich man is that in his lifetime he was content to 
have his good things; that, as he was a worldly man, 
he thought a great deal of this world; he sought his 
pleasures and his treasures here rather than in the love 
of God. And he did not give proper heed to the testi- 
mony of the Bible concerning things to come. That was 
the sole crime of the rich man, so far as the Bible account 
goes. 

Now, a man may say, " It is a very strange doctrine 
that you preach, that a dying thief, an abominable 
sinner, a criminal, in one hour shall repent, that 
he shall go into heaven and be with Christ in Paradise; 
and the man against whom no crime could be charged, 
and who spent his life industriously, and accumulated a 
fortune, and spent it in a proper way, and even gave to 
his neighbours, and had compassion on those that were 
round about him, should go down to hell." Well, let 
us look at it a moment. Why did the dying thief go to 
heaven, and why did that rich man go to hell ? Do 
you suppose that in God's eye those two men stood as 
they appear to stand in the eyes of men, one an abomin- 
able criminal and an outrageous criminal, and the other 
a respectable citizen, a man of industry, and a man 
of capacity, and a man of intelligence, and a man of 
benevolence, as the world calls benevolence? Do you 
suppose that that is God's judgment of those two men ? 

Suppose I stand at the top of some stairs, and I am 
going down, and there is a poor wretch that stands at 
the bottom of the stairs, and he is coming up. Now, I 
am twenty steps, perhaps, above him. He comes up, 
and I go down. Which stands at the bottom by and 
by, and which stands at the top ? God sees the Pharisee 
at the top of the stairs going down ; God sees the 



AN IMPOSSIBLE DISCRIMINATION 147 



publican at the bottom of the stairs going up ; and God 
sees those two men, not as they are when going up, 
but as they will be when they get through. Life is an 
inclined plane. The poor penitent sinner at the bottom 
that cannot so much as lift his eyes to heaven, but sees 
his guilt and owns his sin, and knows his hell-desert, 
and cries to God to meet him at the mercy-seat, is on 
the way up. The Pharisee and hypocrite stands at the 
top in the social level, and in knowledge and apparent 
morality and outward good works, but he is going to 
the bottom; and in the eyes of Him to whom the whole 
future is unveiled the man that is at the bottom of the 
stairs now stands on the top, and the man that is near 
the top of the stairs stands at the bottom. 

You are aware that this is a very difficult subject to 
present, and I feel its difficulty, but I believe that I have 
a scriptural basis for what I am saying- here. When you 
get up to the sun and look back to the earth, the inequali- 
ties on the surface of the earth disappear. Why, we are 
told by men that have studied the subject that the 
highest mountains on the earth, even the Himalaya 
range and others like them, if seen from a distance above 
the earth sufficiently great would appear no larger than 
the inequalities in the surface of the rind of an orange. 
When you come to see the whole globe and take in its 
proportions, those differences and distances which strike 
us as so great on this human level appear to be absolutely 
insignificant. And when God looks down on human 
society, when He sees the difference, for instance, in two 
different men, when He measures all the circumstances 
amid which these men have been born and have been 
brought up, when He measures the strength of tempta- 
tion over one man, and the weakness of that form of 
temptation over another, God measures not as man 
measures, and sees not as man sees. He is looking at 



i 4 8 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



what in that sinner may be developed by grace into the 
saint, and He sees what, in the nominal Pharisee, is 
the gem of iniquity, and depravity, and rebellion, and 
what would develop, under proper circumstances and 
favourable circumstances, into the flagrant transgressor. 

I will not pursue this subject much further, but I beg 
you to notice one or two things. I have said already 
that the difference between men in the point of guilt and 
of outward transgression does not depend upon them- 
selves so much as upon God. Now, we are sensible 
people and intelligent people that are looking at this 
subject, and let me ask you a question. Do not you 
know that there are some people that are born into this 
world with more depraved appetities, and more depraved 
tastes, and more depraved inclinations than other men ? 
Here is a child down in the East of London that is the 
great grandchild of criminals, and paupers, and 
drunkards. There has never been a chance for virtuous 
blood to find its way into the veins of that child. Born 
of such an ancestry, and bred in the midst of the sur- 
roundings of crime, profanity, and blasphemy, with poor 
food and poor clothing, and with no moral teaching, 
with not even any intellectual instruction to uplift the 
mind, with no suggestions of a higher and nobler kind, 
except those that come from an almost strangled con- 
science — that moral sense which is implanted by God 
in the least and lowest of His human creatures — that 
child grows up amid all circumstances that are calculated 
to develop crime. You enjoy the blessing of a virtuous 
home. Your mother is a godly woman ; your father is 
a godly man ; your grandfather and grandmother before 
them were godly people. There is a family Bible in 
the house, and there is a family altar there, where daily 
prayer is offered. You never sit down to your table 
without grace being said over meat, and you never 



AN IMPOSSIBLE DISCRIMINATION 149 



rise on the Lord's day morning without being reminded 
that it is a day of sacred rest, when worship and work 
for God are alone proper and possible to him that regards 
the restrictions of the day. 

Now, I would like to ask you what comparison 
is there between you and that poor little wandering 
waif of whom I have spoken? By birth, by 
blood, by training, by breeding, all the influences 
that have surrounded you from the beginning have 
been a thousand-fold more calculated to uplift you 
into a high level both of intellectual and of moral, as 
well as spiritual, life. Now, does not God take that into 
consideration when He measures your life over against 
the other life ? Does not He take all that into considera- 
tion when He measures your penalty over against the 
penalty of that other soul, in case you both die in sin and 
without Jesus Christ? Why, it would not be possible 
for God to be a just and merciful God if all those things 
were not considered in the making up of His final judg- 
ment. How absurd it is for you to pride yourselves upon 
an externally better life, when the fact is that you owe 
that better life to the circumstances under which, by the 
good providence of God, you were born and bred. 

Then do not think of your outer life as though that 
constituted the whole matter before God. In fact, with 
God it is very little in comparison with the inward 
motive. Go and read the fifth, sixth, and seventh chap- 
ters of the Gospel of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, 
and see with what strange and marvellous skill our Lord 
tears away the veil and shows the motive. Who is the 
murderer ? Not the man that strikes his brother a fatal 
blow, but the man whose hatred towards his brother 
would make the murderous blow possible under circum 
stances of peculiar temptation and provocation. Who is 
the adulterer ? Not the man who is guilty of the external 



ARTHUR T. PIERSOW D.D. 



act of sin, but the man who looks on a woman to lust 
after her. Who is the man that takes God's holy name 
in vain ? Not the man that swears and blasphemes 
simply, but the man who thinks profanely of God, and 
sets His word lightly by him, or inwardly defies God's 
authority. That is the only way for God to judge 
character ; and really it is the only just way for anybody 
to judge character, if it were possible for us to penetrate 
to the hidden motives. 

I remember in Wisconsin, near to what was my 
own home for many years in America, there is a 
kind of moss that grows over the trees. It is a 
beautiful light moss that grows in long trailing ribbons 
on trees. It grows about the trunks of trees, and grows 
with great rapidity until it covers the entire trunk of 
the tree and runs out on the branches, to their further- 
most twig. It droops in all directions about the tree, like 
green ringlets from the tree's head. But that moss is 
a parasite. It feeds on the life of the tree, and when it 
has covered the tree with its deceptive beauty the tree is 
dead, and presently the parasite dies, as well as the tree 
on which it has fed. There is a great deal of external 
life in this world that is like the moss of the Wisconsin 
forest. It covers life with apparent lines of grace and 
seeming beauty, but it feeds on the life it surrounds and 
adorns, and the life and the moss die together. There 
is a good deal of so-called " culture " in this world that 
is just such a moss, and there is a good deal of external 
worship in this world which is just such a moss. 

"Oh," but you say, "it is a very strange thing that 
God should consign to hell people of all grades of sin, 
from the man that has been externally moral, but 
inwardly rebellious against God, to the worst criminal 
that commits every sin which the Decalogue forbids." 
Did it ever occur to you that God could do nothing else 



AN IMPOSSIBLE DISCRIMINATION 151 



with incorrigible sinners but consign them to perdition ? 
I believe that, when the great secrets of eternity are 
opened up, w T e shall find that God — may I reverently say 
it? — had no alternative. I remember in America on one 
occasion that an evangelist who, like myself, has always 
sought to speak true words on this great doctrine of Holy 
Scripture, told, in his sermon, what the Word of God 
said about the fatal guilt of sin. He had quoted, as I 
often have done, the seven deadly sins that Rome puts in 
her list. Now, Rome has taught a great deal of error, 
but there is a great deal of sense and sound scriptural 
teaching in her list of the seven deadly sins. What are 
they? I give them here in their order: pride, idleness, 
envy, murder, coveteousness, lust, gluttony. You 
do not not wonder that murder should be put among the 
deadly sins, but that pride seems so much less guilty, 
idleness, envy, greed, gluttony, should be put on a level 
with lust and murder — that seems at first unjust. But 
there may be some men that are as great sinners in being 
envious as other men are in being murderous. There 
are some men that go as far to assault the authority of 
God in the indulgence of a wicked pride, as other men 
do in the indulgence of a sinful lust; and the questio-- 
is, What is deadly sin ? Deadly sin is sin that brings 
death, and all sin is deadly because all sin brings death. 

But, as I was saying, this evangelist was teaching this 
doctrine of the universal loss of sinners without Christ, 
and a man who w r as present, who was a large manufac- 
turer of glass, took him to task. "Why," he said, "my 
dear sir, it seems to me that you are preaching nonsense. 
You are preaching that I, who do not pretend to be a 
Christian man, nothing but a moral man, at any rate, 
am to be consigned, if I do not believe in Christ and 
repent of my sin, to the same perdition with the man that 
was hano-ed last week for murder." "Well," said mv 



152 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



friend, "I have not said that you would be sent to as 
deep a damnation as he, sir, but I have dared to say- 
that you would, like him, be a lost man if you did not 
accept the sinner's only refuge." "Well," he said, "I 
think that is nonsense. Why, the idea of God casting 
away all men into perdition without respect to the differ- 
ences in those men's characters, or guilt, or sin." 
"Well," said my friend, "I did not say that. I did not 
say that He would have no respect to the differences in 
character, and guilt, and sin, but I did say that He 
would cast them all into perdition if they do not take 
refuge in Christ." 

Well, the* conversation passed, and other subjects 
were taken up. But a few days after, this merchant 
and manufacturer invited the evangelist out to see 
his glass works, and the manufacturer showed him 
one particular part of the business that he explained in 
full, and that was the way in which the various delicate 
articles were made of flint glass. "Now," said he, "for 
the construction of articles in flint glass we have to have 
vessels made that are peculiarly delicate. They are made 
of a peculiar clay that is quite costly, and the earthen 
vessel in which the liquid glass is carried to the tables 
or moulds must be absolutely without a flaw." And he 
took up one of these vessels made of clay, and baked 
into great hardness, and he showed him how, in every 
part of it, it was absolutely sound. "Why," said he, 
there is the slightest flaw or crack in this vessel it is 
'ess": and thereupon he took him out back of the 
v, orks and showed him a large pile of these broken 
vessels. There were some of them that had nothing but 
a little flaw or crack. There were others that were cleft 
in twain. There were others that were broken to pieces. 
"Now," said he, "you see that I have to throw them all 
away, although some of them are very much less broken 



AN IMPOSSIBLE DISCRIMINATION 153 



than others." And my friend the evangelist turned 
upon him and said, "After all, sir, I think you are very 
much in this respect like Almighty God. You throw 
away a vessel that you cannot make any use of ; and sin 
makes a human vessel useless to Almighty God, and 
therefore," he said, "if you, whom sin has ruined, take 
no refuge in Christ, and avail yourself not of the only 
power than can make that vessel pure, and whole, and 
strong, and meet for the Master's use, you shall be cast 
into the same perdition with him who has outwardly 
broken every command of the Decalogue." 

I want you to notice that there are just two other cases 
in which this phrase, "There is no difference," is found 
in the New Testament. One is in the tenth chapter of 
Romans, and the other is the fifteenth chapter of the 
Acts of the Apostles. The same apostle who says in 
this third chapter, "There is no difference, for all have 
sinned and come short of the glory of God," says in the 
tenth of Romans, "There is no difference, for the same 
Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him." And 
in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the 
only other case in which the same phrase is used, Peter 
says, "God put no difference between us and thercf" — 
that is, the Jews and the Gentiles — "purifying their 
hearts by faith." Oh, blessed be God, there is more than 
one sense in which there is no difference. If there is no 
difference in human sin, and human guilt, and condem- 
nation as a fact, and all men go into perdition without 
Christ, there is no difference in a gracious God who is 
Lord over all, and who will extend His saving mercy to 
all that call upon Him in repentance and faith in His 
dear Son ; and He who purifies the hearts of ancient 
saints and modern believers will purify your hearts by the 
same faith, and by the operation of the same grace, if you 
will come unto Him and in Jesus Christ be saved. 



VII 



The Soul's Mathematics 

" For what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world 
and lose himself, or be cast away." — Lu£e ix. 25. 

" For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for 
his soul ? " — £%latihew xvi. 26. 

THE comparison of these two passages is very 
helpful, and I submit to you that it is the most 
awful question that ever God asked of a human 
soul. It is the question of profit and loss. "What is 
a man advantaged " — " what shall it profit a man " — " if 
he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul " — 
that is, " lose himself " — " or be cast away " ; and " if a 
man shall lose his soul, what shall he give in exchange " 
for it to buy it back ? 

Four great thoughts the question suggests. The first 
is the nature of the soul ; the second is the peril of the 
soul ; the third is the value of the soul ; and the fourth is 
the barter of the soul. 

I. 

First, the nature of the soul. Comparing these two 
passages in Matthew and in Luke, we learn this great 
and solemn thing, that a man's soul is a man's self. 
Matthew says, "Lose his own soul." Luke says, "Lose 
his own self," which proves that the soul is the self. 

154 



THE SOUL'S MATHEMATICS 



When God made man He made his body out of the dust 
of the ground, but when He came to make the man in 
his completeness He breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life, and man thus became a living soul, which shows 
that the living soul is what constitutes in God's eyes the 
main part of the man. The body is nothing but like the 
frame, and the soul like the picture. The body is like 
the setting, and the soul is like the gem. The body is 
like the house, and the soul is like the inhabitant. The 
soul is the true self. You put the soul in the body : the 
body does not move the soul, but the soul moves trie 
body. The body may be deformed and homely, but it 
does not affect the soul. Out of a deformed body there 
may go up to God in the hour of death a soul that has 
been transformed in God's image, which is as pure and 
beautiful as an angel. A deformed body cannot deform 
a soul, but a deformed soul can deform a Beautiful body. 
The soul in the body shines through the eye and speaks 
through the features, and the features and the form are 
largely affected by the soul, because the soul is the man, 
and the character of the soul more or less affects even the 
bodily features. 

II. 

So having learned what the nature of the soul is, and 
that it constitutes a man's true self, look for a moment 
at the second thought suggested here, namely, the peril 
of the soul. In the former question we can see that the 
world and the soul are treated here as though they were 
eternal foes. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul ? Here it is taken 
for granted that the world gained means the soul lost. 
And it is true. The world and the soul are foes to each 
other. James says in the fourth chapter, "Know ye not 
that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? 
Whosoever, therefore, will be the friend of this world is 



156 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



the enemy of God." And John says in the ist Epistle, 
2nd chapter, 15th verse: "Love not the world, neither 
the things that are in the world. If any man love the 
world, the love of the Father is not in him ; for all that 
is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, 
and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the 
world ; and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof ; 
but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." Now, 
these are only two of the passages of Scripture which 
might be multiplied indefinitely to show that in God's 
eyes the world and the soul are opposed to each other, so 
that to gain the world is to lose the soul, and to gain the 
soul is to lose the world. 

What is the thought? Selfishness is the root of sin, 
and all forms of sel-indulgence tend to feed and fatten 
our selfish desires. It is a harmful thing for a man simply 
to say to himself, " I will have what I w 7 ant." The mere 
habit of gratifying a selfish desire leaves its impress on 
the man's nature. I think we may put it more boldly 
than this — that an increase of our possessions is accom- 
panied by the shrinking up of our capacity for Divine 
things. And, if an increase of worldly goods is not 
accompanied by this result in the spiritual nature, it is 
because those worldly goods are obtained in the fear of 
God, and used in the fear of God, and so the noble pur- 
pose that animates the soul, the unselfish benevolence of 
the man, saves him from this sad shrinking of himself 
into smaller dimensions. Now, I say the Bible treats 
the soul of man and the world as mutually opposed, so 
that it is impossible for you to live for this world without 
hurting your spiritual nature, and impossible for you to 
seek to gain the world without involving the loss of your 
own spiritual life and power. If a man gains the world, 
he loses his soul ; and if he is going to save his soul, he 
must cut loose from this world. This is a worldly age, 



THE SOUL'S MATHEMATICS 157 



and the church is largely infected with worldliness, but 
that is the old gospel. 

Now look a little further, for these are only prelimi- 
nary thoughts. The most solemn thought is just now 
coming. We have seen what the nature of the soul is. 
It constitutes the man's true self. We have seen what 
the peril of the soul is. It is the foe of the world, and 
the world is its foe ; and therefore as the man lives for the 
world he is losing himself, and he will surely be cast 
away. 

III. 

Now, see, in the third place, what God's notion of the 
value of a soul is. You have doubtless read these words 
many times, and yet they never impressed you as giving 
God's estimate of what a soul is worth. You will notice 
that the question that our Lord put is the strongest form 
of a statement. The question involves only one answer, 
and admits only of one answer. " What is a man profited 
if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? " 
means that any man' that does gain the world at the loss 
of his soul is an infinite loser. And when Jesus Christ 
says in Luke, " For what is a man advantaged if he shall 
gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away ? " 
the very question carries with it only one possible answer : 
he shall not be advantaged at all, but shall be a fool in 
God's sight, and an infinite loser. That is God's value 
of a soul. It is worth even more than the whole world. 
I repeat it, in God's eyes a soul is worth more than the 
whole world. 

Now turn to the eighth Psalm for a moment. David 
is lying on his back, we will suppose on the plains of 
Bethlehem, and studying the heavens. He sees those 
great constellations of stars, and he wonders that God 
should ever have made man as the ruler of this world and 
the lord of creation. "Why," he says, "when I con- 



i 5 8 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



sider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon 
and the stars that Thou hast ordained, what is man that 
Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou 
visitest him ? " Here is a man less than six feet high, 
and who occupies only a few square feet in this world, 
after all a very small and insignificant object; he is born 
and dies inside perhaps of three score and ten years or 
four score years,, just a little fragment of time ; and yet 
here is the sun that is ninety millions of miles away, 
that is, as large as a thousand Jupiters, and Jupiter is as 
large as fifteen hundred of this world that we are in, 
and that sun has been shining ever since man came on 
this sphere, and is shining still, and will probably shine 
for ages to come, and some of these stars are so far 
distant that light, travelling at the rate of two hundred 
thousand miles a second, has taken five millions of years 
to get from these stars to this planet : the orbits of these 
stars are so vast that it takes millions of ages for those 
stars to revolve round their centres ; and when we under- 
stand these things, why, we naturally say, " What is man 
that Thou art mindful of him ? " What is a man that 
occupies so little a space on one little world like this, and 
lives a little life that extends, from his cradle to his grave, 
over four score years? What is he? Why, he is like 
the dust in the balance. 

But that is not what God thinks of him. God 
regards every one of us as of more value than all 
these stars that stud the firmament. When you go 
out any evening just turn your eyes up and see that 
Milky Way that flaunts its white banner from side to 
side of the heavens. Remember that there are millions 
on millions of stars there that are so closely set that, 
like soldiers in a long rank, they stand in a mighty pro- 
cession. All you can see is the silver helmets. Yet there 
is not one of you that is not going to say to the sun, " I 



THE SOUL'S MATHEMATICS 159 



am greater than thou," or, to the moon, " I am greater 
than thou ; and when they all melt away and shall told 
up their white banner and disappear entirely from the 
heavens, I shall behold it, for I shall live for ever." And 
the reason why God put the sceptre of dominion into the 
hand of man when He created him was that man himself, 
the last of His creation, was the greatest of it. All these 
animals are underneath him because he is more majestic 
than them all. All these trees of the field, and plants, 
and herbs, and flowers are under him because spiritual 
life is greater than animal life, and animal life is greater 
than vegetable life ; and this world, because it is nothing 
but a lump of dead matter, and all these worlds in the 
firmament, because they are nothing but lumps of dead 
matter, are all put under man's feet, because there is 
something more sublime in one man than in all the stars 
which God ever created. 

I remember going for the first time into an obser- 
vatory when an astronomer was at work. There 
was a big telescope there, turning its big eye toward 
the heavens, and he sat at the little eye-piece of the 
telescope, looking through at the stars. He had a 
little piece of paper by his side, and he was making 
calculations. He was estimating what the weight of those 
stars was, though they were millions of miles away, 
what were their orbits, what was the rapidity of their 
motion. He was estimating those questions that have to 
do with eclipses. " Why," I said to myself, "how plain 
it is that the man is greater than those worlds, because 
he is putting those worlds into a balance to see how heavy 
they are. He is determining what their courses are to 
be. He is telling us when the earth is coming between 
the sun and the moon, and when the eclipse of the moon 
is to come. He is telling us when these vast changes are 
to take place that are going on among the planets and 



i6o ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

among the stars. Surely the man is greater than the 
stars. The stars could not do that with the man, but 
the man can do that with the stars." 

So I say to you, in God's eyes you are greater than all 
this world, and greater than all the worlds of the universe. 
He would have given all those worlds for your redemp- 
tion if they would have bought that redemption ; but 
they would not, and so He gave His own dear Son. 
That is another sign of the value which He places on 
you. He gave the blood of His precious and only begot- 
ten Son to redeem your soul. 

Now, on the other hand, look at your estimate of your- 
self. What do you think of your soul ? We are told in 
the twelfth chapter of Hebrews that for one morsel of 
meat, Esau sold his birthright. What was the birth- 
right? The birthright was the privilege of the eldest 
son in a family to succeed his father as ruler of the 
family, and the head of the family, and to have the more 
valuable portion of the father's inheritance when the 
father died, and to become the priest of the family when 
the father surrendered his office, or when the birthright 
involved the succession to the property of the father, and 
to the priestly character of the father in the family. Now, 
for one little morsel of meat when he was hungry — for 
one savour}- mess of pottage, Esau, the child of appetite, 
sold his birthright, and he could never get it back. 

What are you doing ? That soul which Christ counts 
of more value than this world, and of the worlds of the 
universe, you will sell for a little mess of gratification, a 
little mess of pottage. You could not gain the whole 
world, and if you did you would be an infinite loser. If, 
therefore, you would be a great fool, if you could get the 
whole world at the expense of your soul, what must your 
folly appear to be in God's eyes when the actual facts are 
known ? Tell me this : how much of this world could 



THE SOUL'S MATHEMATICS i6i 



you get if you gained all that it is possible to get ? The 
richest man I ever knew in America was worth, perhaps, 
thirty millions of pounds sterling — possibly forty 
millions of pounds sterling. He had so much money that 
he did not know what to do with it. The care of it was a 
perplexity and worry all day and night. It reminds me 
of Baron Rothschild, who, when a man came up to him 
and said, " I would like to enter into partnership with 
you," replied, " Would you ? I very much doubt it. How 
would you like to sleep with half a dozen pistols under 
your pillow every night? " 

That man I am speaking of had so much money 
that he was in terror of his life. He did not 
know what day a conspirator might not come into 
his office and blow up that office and him with 
the office. He stood in constant terror of robbery and 
murder. Well now, he had got as large a share in this 
world, perhaps, as any man on the continent of America. 
How much is it in comparison with the world itself ? A 
few acres, with the great wide world held in possession 
by somebody else; a few millions of dollars or pounds 
sterling, and the great mass of human wealth held by 
somebody else. You could not get the whole world, 
could you ? You could only get a very small slice of it, 
after all. Then consider, again, how long you could 
hold it if you had it all ; and how long can you hold what 
little of it you can get ? Remember, it takes twenty, 
thirty, or forty years to get anything worth thinking of. 
It takes a business career to be a rich man. It takes the 
brain-sweat and the heart-sweat, the anxiety of days, and 
the anxiety of nights, before a man mounts up to such 
a fortune as that, and then the greater part of his life is 
gone. How long could you have it if you had it at all ? 
How long would it be yours to hold, and have, and 
enjoy? Perhaps twenty years of time, or thirty years 

M 



i62 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



of time, or perhaps forty years ; but what is that in com- 
parison with eternity ? 

Let me ask another question. How much satisfaction 
could you get out of it if you had it? Did you ever 
see a worldly man that was satisfied ? Did you ever get 
so much of this world so that it ministered any real satis- 
faction to you ? It is just like coming to a broken cistern 
where you hope to find some water to quench your thirst, 
and there is nothing but some brackish water that is 
stagnant or muddy ; or, perhaps, the cistern has run dry, 
or if you get a drink of the water, that is all you get. 
You go away and thirst, and presently have to come back 
like the woman of Samaria to draw again. There is 
nothing to satisfy. I have known a great many worldly 
men and women who have amassed a great fortune, and 
surrounded themselves with magnificent appliances for 
enjoyment and pleasure, but I never yet knew one of them 
that was a happy person. A man that lived not far from 
me in the city of New York, worth about two millions 
of pounds sterling, out of sheer misery, threw himself in 
front of a railway train, and was crushed to atoms in a 
moment, simply because he was so unhappy that he did 
not know what to do with himself. The word "miser" 
recognises the fact that a man who has been a hoarding 
man must be miserable. 

In one of the English cathedral churches there 
is a headstone inscribed with the word Miserimus. 
A most wretched man, a man who accumulated 
a splendid fortune, and died utterly wretched, 
directed by his will that on his tombstone should be 
inscribed Miserimus — most miserable. Did you ever 
read the story of Horace Walpole, who, in the language 
of poetry, is called "the glass of fashion and the mould 
of form," an upright man, a beautiful man, an elegant 
man in accomplishments and in manners, and yet at a 



THE SOUL'S MATHEMATICS 163 



comparatively early age he was a disgusted voluptuary 
or seeker of pleasure, absolutely tired of wealth, tired of 
social prominence, tired of politics, tired of fame, tired 
of pleasure. Did you ever read the story of Madame de 
Pompadour, a brilliant woman at the French court? She 
said, " I am perfectly wretched. I have furnished my 
house in Belle Vue from top to bottom in the most 
elegant style. It gave me a little pleasure two or three 
days, and then I was tired of it. The king is very fond 
of me, and the courtiers are very deferential to me, but 
nothing makes me happy. The fact is, I am dead before 
my time." 

There is nothing more melancholy than the story 
of people who have gained this world, and have 
held it, as they thought, securely, and have been sur- 
rounded by wealth, and by all the pleasures of appetite, 
and ambition, and social prominence, and fame, and 
glory, but behind all that there sat at the feast, as in the 
old Scythian feasts, a skeleton. Outward joy, inward 
misery ; outward wealth, inward poverty ; self-indulgence 
in all its forms, rottenness of the bones, agony all day, 
and sleeplessness and restlessness all night. 

May I ask another question, and ask you to consider it ? 
Did you never find in this world any bitterness? You 
never found any real satisfaction. Did you ever find any 
bitterness ? Did you ever drain one of this world's cups 
and find bitter dregs at the bottom of it ? Did you ever 
nurse pleasure in your bosom and find that, while it 
sparkled in the many colours of a fascinating serpent, it 
left a sting in your breast behind it ? Did you ever have 
a sinful joy or a worldly joy, if you please to make the 
distinction, and afterwards have your conscience pursue 
you with a whip of scorpions ? Did you ever get intoxi- 
cated with a human pleasure, and then feel an awful 
nervous reaction after the intoxication, like a man who 



164 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



awakens up from a drunken sleep and says, " I am beaten, 
and yet I have not been in a strife ; and I am sick, and 
yet I have not been ill " ? 

Will you not think of all this before God ? You could 
not get all this world, but only a little of it at best. You 
could not hold what little of it you got but for a little 
time. It could not give you satisfaction while you had it, 
and it would leave bitterness behind, as does every 
selfish pleasure after the pleasure is indulged. And 
what are you doing? You are bartering your soul for 
a mess of pottage. You are selling your birthright, 
and, what is worst of all, you can never buy your soul 
back if you lose it. 

Stop awhile and consider this. Suppose that the 
richest of you, the one that is most sated with human 
pleasures, the one that has lived longest and had 
the most enjoyment out of the pleasures of the world 
and of sin, should hear God simply say to you, "This 
night thy soul shall be required of thee." Suppose that 
you should stand before God before midnight, and you 
should see at a glance that you were a lost man, your soul 
at enmity with God, no reconciliation through Christ, 
no forgiveness of sin, no open door to heaven. Now, 
consider what your condition would be. You would 
have lost your soul . Would you have the world ? I can 
understand that a man should risk something where there 
is a certain gain. I can understand how a man may 
venture a speculation when there is a possible large result 
before him. I can understand how a man may give a 
heavy price for something that he prizes enough to pay 
the price for it, even though I might say that he paid 
far too much. I could understand that a man might 
pay ten times what a house is worth, because he fancies 
the house, or pay ten times what an object is worth 
because he is ambitious to obtain the object. But look 



THE SOUL'S MATHEMATICS 165 



at it. Why, there is infernal folly in your course, for 
suppose you get as much of the world as you can get, 
and hold it as long as you can hold it, and enjoy it as 
much as you can enjoy it ; suppose that there was not a 
drop of bitterness in it while you had it; suppose you 
were born into the possession of the largest fortune on 
earth, and died at one hundred years of age in possession 
of it, but lost your own soul, how do you stand then? 
You are before the bar of God and your soul is lost, is 
it not ? Is not the world lost, too ? Why, the thing for 
which you have sacrificed your eternity is lost, as well as 
your soul. That is to say, you have lost time, and you 
have lost eternity, both. 

OK, the folly of it! I cannot speak in such terms 
as the subject demands. It has been for many years 
to me a mystery how any man can live without 
Christ. I have not had a solid day of comfort in 
all my life that has not been spent in the service of 
God. I have had opportunities to be rich, but it cost 
me nothing to forsake those opportunities, for I was 
already rich. My Father is rich in houses and land. 
I expect to inherit tHe universe with Jesus Christ, and 
it is well enough to go along for a few years a poor man 
if need be. What is that when a man can stand before 
God and know that he has saved his soul, and he has 
got that and the universe besides for eternity ? But as to 
you, why, could there be any bigger fool than you are, 
even on the basis of a worldly calculation? You give 
your eternity for time: then you lose time, too. You 
give your soul for the world: then you lose the world, 
too. And so you stand before God as one that has lost 1 
himself and been cast away, and lost his only treasure, 
and had cast that away, too. 

So I come to you with God's own question, and 
solemnly ask it in the presence of God. Now, will you 



166 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



hear it? I am a dying man : I cannot do anything for 
you but put God's truth before you. Just let us stand 
in the presence of God together. Let Him ask us this 
question : What shall it advantage a man if he gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul? And if you have 
lost your soul, what are you going to give to buy it back ? 
You had the world once, but it is los!, and if the giving 
of the world would buy your soul back it would be too 
late, for you have lost the world, as well as your soul. 
What are you going to give to buy your soul back ? Can 
you give your tears and your repentance? Why, if 
Christ's tears and Christ's sorrow would not buy your 
soul, and you despised that price, do you think that 
God is going to weigh your tears in the scale? "Come 
now, and let us reason together, said the Lord. Though 
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as wool." 

Now, what I want you to do now, what God wants you 
to do, is to determine in His strength that you will no 
longer run the risk of losing your own soul for the sake 
of all the world, if you could get all the world. Then by 
and by, when you stand in the presence of the Lord, 
you will find that you have saved your soul, and, though 
you have sacrificed the world, you have got what is 
infinitely greater and what never can be given up — God 
and heaven, and immortality, and eternal blessedness at 
the right hand of God. 



VIII 



The Ethics of Forgiveness 

11 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive 
us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." — 
1 John i. 9. 

YOU detect flowers from a tropical climate, when 
you find them in the temperate or frigid zone, 
by the fact that they are out of their natural 
soil. How do you know that the Bible is the Word 
of God? One of the strongest evidences is found 
in the fact that within the compass of the Holy Scripture 
you find celestial plants which evidently never sprang up 
on earthly soil. They are plainly from the gardens of 
God. The conceptions which the Bible presents to us 
about forgiveness are infinitely above all human notions 
on that subject. They are as far above the minds of men 
as the heavens are higher than the earth. In the 
so-called alphabetical Psalms, the whole alphabet of the 
Hebrew is used to begin certain sentences or stanzas in 
the Psalms. For instance, in the 119th Psalm there 
are as many divisions as there are letters in the Hebrew 
alphabet, and each division consists of eight verses, each 
of which begins with the same letter in order. The first 
eight verses begin with "aleph," the first letter of the 
alphabet ; the next with "beth," the second letter \ the 

167 



1 68 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



third with "gimel," the third letter of that alphabet, and 
so on. 

The idea seems to be that if you should use all the 
resources of language, you could never express the glory 
of the Word of God concerning which that Psalm was 
written. And so in the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs 
we have an acrostic poem on the virtuous woman. The 
verses devoted to the description of such a woman begin 
with each letter of the alphabet in order, as though to 
indicate to us that all the words that can be formed from 
human speech could never tell us the value of a woman 
such as God has renewed and set in the midst of a house- 
hold as a centre of light, and influence, and joy, and love. 

Now, it is so about forgiveness. The words which are 
used to represent forgiveness, and to describe the results 
upon our relation with God, cover almost the entire range 
of the Hebrew and Greek Alphabets. It seems as though 
no figure of speech and no form of expression could be 
employed which has not been employed to give utterance 
to the mind of God on this subject. 1 should like now to 
select two or three of the most emphatic forms of state- 
ment to be found in the Bible on the subject, simply as 
examples of all the rest. 

Suppose we take the first chapter of the prophecy of 
Isaiah, which contains a remarkable setting forth of the 
Divine forgiveness. In the eighteenth verse we read 
these words : " Come now, and let us reason together, 
said the Lord " — or " Hold a reasonable discourse with 
each other " — " though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, 
they shall be as wool." The reason why scarlet and 
crimson are here used to indicate the deep dye of sin is 
that the ancient dyers supposed that those colours could 
not be extracted from any fabric which was coloured 
with them. Why, it is less than a century since the 



THE ETHICS OF FORGIVENESS 169 



method of bleaching scarlet rags^ was discovered. 
Many of us remember when all our blotting pads were 
made of red paper, because, while other rags could be 
bleached, out of which to make white paper, the scarlet 
dye proved so impossible to extract from the fabric that 
it was left in the fabric, and the red rags were made into 
blotting paper or blotting pads. 

Now, if modern invention alone has found a way to 
extract the scarlet or crimson colour from fabrics, what 
power and what emphasis must these words have had to 
the ancients when no such method Had as yet been dis- 
covered. * Though your sins be as scarlet, and therefore 
cannot be extracted as to their guilt and defilement by 
any human means, I will make them as white as snow. 
And though they be as blood-red as crimson, which repre- 
sents in the Bible the highest possible aggravation of 
guilt, they shall be as wool." That is a declaration of 
the fact that there is no sin whose dye of guilt is so deep 
that God cannot take that guilt out of the soul and make 
the soul white as the snow or clean as the wool. 

Take the second representation from the 103rd Psalm. 
That is another marvellous exhibition of the Holy Spirit. 
We read here : " As the heaven is high above the earth so 
great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far 
as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our 
transgressions from us." You will notice that no point 
in the heavens is indicated — no point in the east or in 
the west. No man ever yet measured the distance 
between earth and heaven ; and, as to the east and the 
west, they represent contrary directions. They are so 
illimitable that you may go eastward till you pass round 
the entire circle of the heavens and come westward. I 
wish that I could give some conception of how this matter 
lies in the mind of God. If you could go out some even- 
ing and get a glimpse of Sirius, the dog star, which is 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



the nearest fixed star, you would look upon a sun which 
is blazing with a thousand times the light and heat of our 
sun. It is so immense that if you could go and stand on 
the orb of Sirius, and from that point look back toward 
the earth, the earth could nowhere be seen. And the 
distance is so great and so illimitable that if the entire 
orbit of Neptune, which is the outermost of the planets of 
the solar system, were filled with one solid globe of fire 
as radiant as the sun, and if, from the orb of Sirius, 
looking through a telescope, you should hold a single 
filament of a spider's web in front of your eye, the 
diameter of the spider's web would suffice to cover the 
entire body that filled the orbit of Neptune. In the 
nebula of Orion there is a bright star. It is a sun. It is 
twenty-five thousand times the size of our sun. The sun 
is fifteen hundred times as large as Jupiter ; and Jupiter is 
one thousand times as large as the earth. You can con- 
ceive what must be the power of such a sun as that. 
Why, if the earth were revolving about that sun as near 
as it is to the sun of our own system, it would be 
shrivelled up in the heat of it at the distance of ninety 
millions of miles, just as a shaving burns in a tremendous 
furnace fire. You see the idea is that God puts our sins 
so far away from us that they are out of sight. 

The first promise told us that He could take the dye of 
sin out of the soul. The second promise tells us that He 
will remove our sins out of sight so that they cannot be 
seen any more than the earth could be seen from that 
star in the nebula of Orion, or from the burning, glowing 
photosphere of Sirius. 

Take another of His glorious promises. In the seven- 
teenth verse of the tenth chapter of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, we read: "Their sin and their iniquity will I 
remember no more." That adds a glory to all else that 
has been said. The passage in Isaiah tells us that God 



THE ETHICS OF FORGIVENESS 171 



can take the guilt of sin out of the soul. The passage in 
the Psalms tells us that He will remove our sins out of 
His sight, and this tells us that He will remove our sins 
out of His mind. He will forget them. He will remem- 
ber them no more. And I say, again, that the thoughts 
of God on the subject of forgiveness are so far in advance 
of our thoughts that we can only illustrate the difference 
by the infinite space that stretches between the earth and 
the heavens. 

Notice that the Apostle says in the text that God is 
" faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness " ; and it shows the glory of 
God's forgiveness that He more than pardons. Suppose 
that some man who is in prison to-day under a life sen- 
tence was, by the grace of the Sovereign pardoned, and 
appeared to-morrow in the streets of London. The man 
is pardoned. Is he forgiven? There is a great deal of 
difference between pardon and forgiveness. That man 
may once have been in your house, and may have sat 
down at your table. Then he committed a crime and was 
put in prison for a life sentence. Will you take that man 
back into your house and seat him at your table again ? 
Not at all. He is pardoned, but he is not forgiven. 
Society will never forgive him for that crime, although 
he is pardoned. He escapes penalty, but rfe does not 
escape social judgment. When God pardons a sinner, 
He makes him new. He begins a work that issues in the 
absolute renovation of character. So He not only tor- 
gives, but He cleanses. He not only forgives, but He 
reconciles and restores. He sets man back where he 
would have been if he had not sinned. He makes him 
a companion of Himself. He prepares him to be a com- 
panion of saints and of angels. The glory of God's for- 
giveness is that it not only changes the man's condition, 
but it changes the man's character, because character is 



172 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

what makes final condition ; and therefore no condition is 
permanently established unless the character on which 
it depends is established. 

So here we have one of the great declarations in the 
New Testament, that God forgives our sins and cleanses 
us from all unrighteousness — unrighteousness of the out- 
ward life and unrighteousness of the inward life; from 
immorality and impropriety in conduct, and from all 
violations of truth, and honour, and honesty, and moral 
standards in the inner life ; so that, while some people say 
that Christianity teaches that a man is saved irrespective 
of character, we utterly deny that there are any such 
teachings in Christianity. The glory of this Gospel is 
that it teaches us that when Jesus Christ bestows forgive- 
ness He sends the Holy Spirit to regenerate the heart, and 
renew' the life, and transform or transfigure the character, 
so that at the last we shall be presented spotless, blame- 
less, undefiled in the presence of the infinite glory. 

Now, this same text shows us the terms of such forgive- 
ness. There is only one word used here that indicates 
the condition of such forgiveness. It is the word "con- 
fess." Now, we ought to compare Scripture with 
Scripture. The word "confess" may mean one thing, 
or more than one thing, as the case may be. If you turn 
to the thirty-second Psalm, you will find the finest dis- 
course in the Old Testament on the subject of forgiveness 
and confession. In that Psalm three words or phrases 
are used which are strikingly alike. " I acknowledge my 
sin " ; " My iniquity have I not hid " ; " I said, I will con- 
fess my transgression unto the Lord." It might be said 
that these three words mean the same thing. To 
acknowledge, not to hide, and to confess, are very closely 
similar terms. But suppose we look a moment. I think 
we shall see that those three words refer to the three 
forms of confession. There is first a confession to 



THE ETHICS OF FORGIVENESS 173 



myself ; then a confession to my fellow-man whom I have 
wronged, and also a confession to my 'God ; and without 
this threefold confession the work of confession is not 
complete. 

In that phrase in the first chapter of the Epistle of John 
there is nothing said with regard to whom confession is 
made. "If we confess our sin He is faithful and just to 
forgive," and the reason may be because the whole subject 
of confession is lodged in that one word. For instance, 
if I have sinned I must acknowledge it to myself. Men 
oftentimes begin by denying to themselves that they are 
sinners. The Apostle refers to this in the previous verse. 
He says, " If we say that we have no sin we deceive our- 
selves and the truth is not in us." That is a denial to our- 
selves of our sin, not a denial to God, for the same thing 
is not referred to in the verse that follows the text : " If 
we say that we have no sin we make Him a liar and His 
word abideth not in us." That is evidently denying it 
to God, because we are told that we make God a liar. 
But, in the other case, we are told that if we say that we 
have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in 
us. So I take it that the first confession is an acknowledg- 
ment to myself. It is bringing my sin to my knowledge. 
It is looking my sin fully in the face. It is saying to 
myself, " Yes, it is true that I am a sinner." 

If you want to get an illustration of this look in the 18th 
chapter of Luke. The publican standing afar off would 
not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, but he smote 
upon his breast and said, " God be merciful to me the 
sinner " — as it is in the Greek: not "a sinner," but "the 
sinner." He smote upon his breast as though he felt that 
all the possibilities of sin were represented and concen- 
trated in his own heart and conscience and life, — as 
though within him all the sin that could be seen was to 
be found. That is acknowledging sin to myself. It is 



174 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



saying, "I am the sinner. There is no doubt about my 
guilt. There is no doubt about my defilement. There 
is no doubt about the reasonableness of my condemna- 
tion." That is the first step in confession. Look your 
sin fully in the face, and acknowledge to yourself the 
fact of it and the guilt of it. 

The next thing is to confess it to those whom you have 
wronged. That is the part of confession that is very often 
overlooked. May I call your attention to the 5th chapter 
of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, and to a remark- 
able word of the Lord there ? He says in the 5th chapter 
and the 23rd verse, " If thou bring thy gift to the altar, 
and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against 
thee, leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way. 
First be reconciled to thy brother : then come and offer thy 
gift." The idea is that if you are coming up to the place 
of prayer or worship with an offering in your hand to be 
presented to the Lord, and it occurs to you on the way 
that there is an unsettled quarrel between you and your 
brother, you are to leave your gift before the altar — not 
complete your sacrifice or offering ; leave your gift there 
before the altar, not upon the altar but before it, and go 
your way and find your brother and be reconciled to him, 
and make it all right with him, and then come and com- 
plete your offering to God. 

Now, what is the lesson ? The lesson is that it is im- 
possible for you to have peace with God for forgiven sin 
while there is an act of restitution or reparation that you 
are bound to make to your fellow man. I have in mind 
a most interesting and most ordinary story, but it is a 
fact. One ol my triends who is a famous evangelist was, 
on one occasion, in the enquiry room, confronted by a 
woman who was a trained nurse, and for several years 
had been attending at the bedside of the sick and dying. 
She was evidently in great trouble about her sins, and 



THE Ethics of forgiveness 175 



she could get no relief. For several nights she appeared 
in the enquiry room and sought to have a personal con- 
versation with this evangelist ; but somehow he felt that 
he had not got to the core of her difficulty, and so on the 
third or fourth" night he said, "Madam, I think that you 
had better not come to me any more. I cannot do you 
any good. It is perfectly plain to me that there is some- 
thing that is wrong between you and God, or else wrong 
between you and your fellow man." And then she made 
a very simple confession. She said that while she was 
attending a dying patient, she had abstracted from the 
cupboard that was pertaining to the sick room five bottles 
of wine, which she appropriated to her own use, and that 
the patient had died and she had never made confession, 
and it was too late to make reparation, for the person to 
whom the five bottles of wine belonged was dead. My 
friend said to her, "Are there any survivors?" "Yes, 
there are a son and a daughter." " Where do they live ? " 
" They live in Glasgow." This scene took place in the 
city of London. Said he, " My advice to you is that you 
seek out these people and make to them a plain confession 
of this sin of yours, and make reparation." Said she, " I 
am a poor woman. I cannot afford the journey to 
Glasgow, and I have no money to pay even for the bottles 
of wine." "Well," said he, "in my opinion you will 
never have peace with God till you do your best to make 
reparation for that wine." 

Although the woman might have written a letter 
in acknowledgment, she raised the money and took 
the journey to Glasgow, and saw those people, and 
made a personal confession of her sin to them, and said, 
" I will pay for this wine just as soon as I can earn the 
money." Then she got peace. She would never have had 
peace if she had not made reparation. I tell this story, 
plain as it is, simple as it is, and uninteresting as it may 



176 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



be, because it is a practical illustration of the fact that 
there is a confession to my fellow man that belongs to me 
if I am going to make my sin right with Almighty God. 
I first must look at that sin myself and acknowledge it. 
Then, if I have done an injury to other people, I must 
do what I can to repair that injury and to make up for 
the damage, for there is no such thing as peace with God 
if there is no such thing as peace with my own con- 
science. 

And I want to say that if you have damaged your 
fellow man by a slander or a lie, you have to make 
up for that, or you will never have peace. If you have 
stolen what does not belong to you, you have to return 
it or make reparation for it, or you never can have peace. 
If you have even indulged in hateful, disloyal, malicious, 
dispositions towards another man or another woman, that 
thing has to be put out of your way ; and if there has been 
any open expression or manifestation of it there must be 
a confession as open as the sin has been, or there will 
never be peace. What God wants is that I should tell 
myself that I am a sinner ; then tell the man that I have 
injured that I have sinned against him. I must make my 
confession as public as my iniquity has been. You are 
not called upon to tell any congregation of a damage that 
you have done to a private individual of whom nobody 
knows anything but yourself and that individual; but, 
I repeat that so far as the sin has been an open sin, the 
confession must be an open confession, and the reparation 
must go as far as the damage has gone, or you will vainly 
seek peace. 

The third element in this confession is confession to 
God. " I acknowledge my sin unto Thee." If you want 
to see a splendid sample of confession of sin to God read 
that 51st Psalm. If there ever was a man who sinned 
against his fellow men it was David. He sinned against 



THE ETHICS OF FORGIVENESS 177 



Uriah the Hittite. He sinned against Bath-sheba, and, 
so far as the sin was known, he sinned against the whole 
people of Israel and gave the enemy of the Lord occasion 
to blaspheme. David's confession was just as public as 
his crime was public. Hence he wrote the 51st PsaTm. 
Hence he acknowledged his sin to his servants and the 
members of his court, as you will see if you read the 
narrative of Nathan's rebuke to him in the presence of 
his court and his acknowledgment of the sin in the same 
presence. But, in that 51st Psalm, when he is thinking 
about this sin what does he say? " Against Thee, Thee 
only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight " ; 
that is to say the sin was so flagrantly against God that 
he even forgot for the time being that it was a sin against 
man. In the 15th chapter of Luke you have the same 
thing. The prodigal goes away from his father into a 
far country, and wastes his substance in riotous living, 
and when he comes back to his father what does he say ? 
"Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee." 
He puts them in the right order. Not " before thee and 
against heaven," but, first of all, the sin is against God, 
and, secondly, the sin is " in thy sight " also. 

May I mention a single incident that occurred in my 
own history ? A good many years ago, in the upper por- 
tion of New England, in a little social gathering of ladies 
and gentlemen, when we were giving puzzles in literature 
to be solved, I gave a very obscure quotation, the source 
of which I knew, and I said, " I should like to see who of 
you between now and next week can find the source of 
that quotation." Next week we came together, and a 
bright sprightly girl in the company said, " I have found 
that quotation," and she gave me the source of it. Twenty 
years passed away. I received a letter from that woman, 
who had now married a prominent clergyman in trie 
Congregationel Church in the United States. She was 

N 



178 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



now the mother of five children, and a Christian worker; 
but she said, " I want to say to you that for twenty years 
I have had no peace of mind because I misled you with 
regard to that quotation. I led you to suppose that I 
found it by my own skill, when the fact is that I went to 
the most literary person that I knew in the city of Boston 
and ascertained from him the source of that quotation." 
Why, most people would have said : " That is a very 
trifling thing anyway," but she knew that a deception in a 
small matter lay on her conscience, and for twenty years 
she violated her peace with her conscience and her God, 
till she wrote me and made the confession of what many 
people would call a very slight violation of truth and 
uprightness. 

And, the longer I live, the more I am satisfied that the 
conscience is a whip of scorpions, and that if you do not 
want your conscience to be your enemy, and to lash you 
with that whip of scorpions, you need to make your peace 
with yourself first of all, then with your fellow man, and 
then with your God. Then peace may fill your mind and 
spread her bright wings in protection over your life. 

I want now to call attention to one little word that has 
not been mentioned yet, and that is the word "just." 
In all the sermons that have been preached from that 
text I have never yet seen any reference to that word 
" just." We think of God in forgiveness as being merci- 
ful, but we do not think of God in forgiveness as being 
just; and yet the Apostle says, " If we confess our sins, 
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to 
cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Why faithful? 
Because He has promised. Why just? Because He has 
laid our iniquity upon Jesus, and Jesus has satisfied the 
penalty of the law. And when I take refuge in the mercy 
and grace of Jesus, it is unfair for God to exact a second 
penalty from me, inasmuch as the debt is already paid,, 



THE ETHICS OF FORGIVENESS 179 



I beg you to notice those two words, for they are intended 
for your comfort and mine. Have you any question with 
regard to your forgiveness? Put it away from you, as 
dishonouring both the faithfulness of God and the justice 
of God. You insult His mercy if you doubt that He will 
keep His covenant promise ; and you insult His rectitude 
if you suppose that, having exacted the penalty of your 
sin from His dear Son, He will exact the penalty again 
from you . 

Let me illustrate this. Some years ago in what were 
called the Petty Sessions in Ireland there was a young 
lad who was taken up for a misdemeanour and brought 
before the judge. He was proved to be guilty. He was 
sentenced to pay a fine of thirty shiflings. His mother 
said to the judge, " Your honour, we have not got thirty 
shillings in the world, and we could not raise it," and she 
pleaded for a pardon for her boy. The judge said, 
" Madam, the law is inexorable. Your son has committed 
this fault, and the penalty is thirty shillings or thirty 
days in jail." The elder brother, while the court was in 
session and the trial was going on, seeing what the 
result was going to be, went away and sold all the 
implements on his farm and gathered thirtv shillings. 
He came back to the court. The sentence had been pro- 
nounced, and the boy had been taken away by the officer 
to the jail. The elder brother paid the money into the 
judge's hands, and got a written release, and ran after 
the officer in the street, and overtook him just as he had 
come to the jail door with the culprit held by the hand. 
He showed his release, and from the door of that jail he 
took his brother out of the hands of the officer. That 
judge was faithful to forgive that misdemeanour when the 
penalty was paid. Was he not also just ? Would it not 
have been a violation of justice to put that boy into jail 
after that thirty shillings was paid? God has an infinite 



i8o ARTHUR T. PIERSOK, D.D. 



sense of justice as well as of mercy. When He offers you 
salvation in Jesus Christ, when He tells you that He 
laid your sin on Jesus Christ, His faithfulness to His 
own word and His sense of justice demands that you 
should not come under the penalty of sin for which Christ 
has atoned. And so the precious Word of God encourages 
us to believe, and believe absolutely, for it tells us, " If 
we confess our sins to ourselves, to our fellow man, and to 
God, He is faithful, and, not only so, but He is just, to 
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all un- 
righteousness." 

So I beseech you to come to this great Saviour. Get 
this full and free forgiveness. Say to yourself, "I am a 
sinner. All sin finds its fountains in my soul." Go to 
your brother against whom you have offended, or your 
sister against whom you have offended, or your fellow 
man against whom you have offended, and make your 
restitution or your reparation. Then get down before trie 
altar of God, and say, " God be merciful to me a sinner for 
Christ's sake " ; and His faithfulness and His justice 
will combine to forgive your sin and to cleanse you from 
all unrighteousness. 



IX 



The Sower and the Soil 



" Behold, a sower went forth to sow." — Matthew xiii. 3. 
T"^ HOUGH we call this the parable of the sower, 



it might also be called the parable of the soil ; 



A for really the stress of the parable is not upon 
the sower nor upon the seed, but upon the soil. 
The seed, as our blessed Lord Himself tells us, is the 
Word of God. There is the first introductory thought 
— the seed is the Word of God hiding within it 
infinite possibilities. I would to God that we could ever 
feel that at the back of the man who speaks, who is 
nothing but the sower scattering God's seed, God Himself 
addresses human hearts upon matters of infinite moment. 
His W T ord is called the seed. A seed is a germ; it has 
within it the sources of plant life. Burial in the earth is 
the development of the germ ; and this seed which is the 
Word of God hides within it the most precious germ in 
the universe. Jesus Christ is the kernel; and even what 
we call the Word of God, precious as it is, is only the 
husk. So precious is this kernel, that the Word of God 
is the husk that envelopes and protects the infinitely 
precious germ. And when that Word is sown in an 
obedient heart, the germ takes root and there developes 
in the life an image of Christ Himself. 

There are four sorts of soil that are indicated here, and 
the thing which is noticeable about them is, their degree 
of reception of the seed. And let me say that it is a most 




181 



182 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



noticeable thing here, that although you may keep out 
the seed of God from the human soul you cannot keep it 
down if you once let it in. That is the reason why Satan 
is on hand everywhere, while we seek to sow the seed, 
immediately to catch it away. He can perhaps keep it out, 
but he cannot keep it down if once it be let in. So let us 
all be sure that Satan does not keep it out. As I have 
said, there are four sorts of soil here. We may designate 
them in a very simple way so as to remember them. In 
the first soil the seed gets no hold ; in the second it gets 
no root; in the third it gets no room, and so yields no 
fruit; but in the fourth it gets hold, it gets root, it gets 
room, and so it gets fruit. 

First it gets no hold. It fell on beaten paths, 
the trodden way-side. You cannot go through a 
ploughed field without seeing parts of the field, usually 
along the borders of it, where the sower himself 
has been accustomed to tread, and where the plough 
in breaking up the field has not reached. Sometimes 
in Oriental lands you will find a path right across 
the middle of a ploughed field, and that is the way over 
which travel goes on night and day. Now whenever the 
seed falls there, it finds a trodden path, it can get no root, 
no hold, and the birds of the air that are hovering over 
that ploughed field where the sower is at work pounce on 
the seed and carry it away. How simple is the illustration 
of spiritual truth ! The soil where the seed of God gets 
no hold is the heart where the Word is listlessly heard and 
makes no impression. 

I think we may say that there are three obstacles in the 
way of the Word getting hold upon such a kind of heart 
as this : first the dull ear, secondly the dull mind, and 
thirdly the dull heart. The dull ear that is taken up with 
listlessness which prevents the Word really awakening 
what we call sensation ; it does touch the organs of the 



THE SOWER AND THE SOIL 183 



hearing but it awakens no response in the mind so that 
there is no reception of what is heard. Then there may be 
a dull mind, a mind that is dull because it is full of other 
holdings, full of thoughts that are wandering over the 
whole face of the earth ; taken up and absorbed and en- 
grossed it may be with trifles. So again there is a dull 
heart that is hard and cold by insensibility and unbelief, 
so that while the Word is nominally, externally heard, it 
is not heard by the mind, by the heart, by the conscience, 
or by the will. 

Our Lord Jesus uses one figure of speech here when He 
speaks of the birds of the air who came and devoured it 
up. A bird hovers over a field, he sweeps down upon it 
rapidly, and instantaneously catches a grain of seed and 
devours it. Our Lord in the application of the parable 
tells us that these birds of the air are the agents of the 
devil, — " Then cometh the wicked one and catcheth 
away that which was sown in their hearts." Out in every 
church vestibule the devil's birds are so thick that if you 
had an eye open to see them you would see nothing else. 
Inside every vestibule the devil's birds are a perfect flock. 
If you listen you could hear the flutter of their wings. 
What is one of those birds of the air? Mirth. Some- 
times when the Word of God is preached you will see one 
man nudging another with his elbow and smiling, or one 
man may be merely whispering to another, and then there 
is a titter. That is the devil's bird, frivolity, laughing 
away an impression, turning away a solemn truth of God 
by a reference to something that is light and merry, and 
frivolous and unworthy. 

When in October, 1899, I was lecturing in Mr. 
Moody's Evangelistic Institute at Chicago, Mr. Moody 
came in one day to the dinner table and said he 
had just been to see a Swede, who had been sick 
of typhoid fever. He had been for weeks near the 



i& 4 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



gate of death, and although he had never met Mr. 
Moody he sent for him. He had to speak to him through 
an interpreter. He wanted to deliver a message to dear 
Mr. Moody, and it was this. He had heard that in some 
of the public meetings held in London about that time, 
Francis Murphy, the temperance lecturer, was making 
the people explode with laughter by his funny stories; 
and he said to Mr. Moody " I have found all through my 
life that in the midst of a solemn address, if you tempt the 
people to laughter, that is the time when the devil's birds 
of the air* take away the seed of truth sown in human 
hearts." It was a most solemn warning, and we need 
that warning. The devil takes advantage of the diversion 
of a laugh, of the creation of a frivolous feeling or 
emotion — he takes advantage of that point in a discourse 
or that interruption in the impression for the birds to 
swoop down and carry away the sacred seed. 

Another of these birds is criticism. You do not like 
the minister's appearance, the cut of his hair or of nis 
coat, you do not like his gesture, or there is something 
else you do not fancy, some mispronunciation, or the 
want of correct language. Something or other awakens 
criticism, and that criticism is the devil's bird in the air 
to catch away the seed of God. I remember when I first 
began to preach a father came to me making this confes- 
sion. He said, " I heard not long ago a sermon, and 
my son was with me; we were walking home; my son 
was behind me, I was walking with a neighbour, and I 
said to him that I did not think the sermon amounted to 
very much, that there was no originality of thought about 
it, and that it did not impress my own mind at all. My 
son had been deeply convicted under that sermon, but 
he heard his father's criticism, and it banished the con- 
viction." 

If we could go out of a place of prayer in solemn 



THE SOWER AND THE SOIL 185 



silence, and instead of talking about the minister and the 
sermon, specially, in a light and frivolous way, if we 
would first of all go where we could get alone with God 
and ask a blessing on the discourse, how many of the 
birds of the devil might go away without any seeds in 
their beaks ? 

Another of these devil's birds of the air is art. Some 
people say that we have got a very bald, bare worship 
in our churches. If we had the world's art in the place 
of prayer, we would have it full of the devil's birds 
of the air. That is a common way in which the devil gets 
his flocks of birds in these days into places of worship, 
so that attention is diverted to lofty arches, beautiful 
pillars and columns and decorations of all kind, and the 
play of an aesthetic, instead of the simplicity of an 
apostolic worship. Now the first thing you want is to 
have the seed of God get hold. Beware then that there 
be nothing in you encouraging others by which Satan 
gets a chance to take away the seed of God before it has 
begun even to take root. 

So we come to the second kind of soil, which is soil 
of a rocky character where there is a thin layer of earth, 
and rock beneath. What does that mean ? Our Lord says 
it corresponds to those who, when they hear the Word, 
immediately with joy receive it, but they have no root in 
themselves, and by and by when tribulation or persecu- 
tion ariseth because of the Word, these that appear to be 
converted disciples are made to offend and stumble, and 
they give up their hope and their faith. What does this 
mean ? It is very simple. The seed gets no root. As in 
the first case there was no impression made, so here there 
is no depth of conviction. All the impression is a shallow 
one, although there is a kind, enthusiastic reception of 
the Word as though it met a felt want in mind and heart, 



186 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



it is transient, it soon passes away, and there is no perma- 
nent effect because there is no depth of the spiritual life. 

Now, what does this mean, to drop the figure and the 
parable for a moment ? A lack of deep conviction. Our 
blessed Lord says, "By and bye, when tribulation 
ariseth " — and Luke adds, " In times of temptation they 
fall away." You have seen it a thousand times in your 
own experience. Here is a young man, for instance, who 
hears a sermon that strikes his mind as something needed 
by him in its presentation of truth, and you think that 
he is going to make a true and earnest disciple of Jesus 
Christ ; but a few days pass away and lo and behold he 
has lost all conviction and is back again in the world. 
He cannot stand a laugh. A light word is the devil's 
keenest sword, and many a time a light word has 
severed the bond that was forming between a soul and 
Jesus Christ. Here is a man that cannot stand the 
ridicule of his companions. They sneer upon him, pour 
contempt upon him, and he has so much regard for their 
approval and good opinions that he forsakes regarding 
the opinion of God for that of the sneerers and 
blasphemers with whom he keeps daily company. 

I was talking once to a young lad with regard to his 
own salvation, and I was presenting him with a few test 
questions. I said, "Are you in business? " He replied, 
" I am." " Where are you in business ? " I asked, and he 
told me. "I suppose," I said, "there are a lot of errand 
boys round about you there ? " " Yes." "Do they help 
you in your Christian life, or do they hinder you ? " 
" Well," he said, " My dear sir, they are no help to me, I 
can assure you." "Then why do you not give up trying 
to live a Christian life ? What is the use of trying to 
serve God amid all these hindrances and difficulties ? " 
" Well," said he, " I have thought sometimes that it was 
perhaps a good thing for me to have a little ridicule, 



THE SOWER AND THE SOIL 187 



because I think it makes me a stronger Christian." You 
see that boy understood it all at 15 years of age. He had 
learned what I have already referred to, that the wind 
that swings and rocks the tree to and fro only makes the 
tap root strong if there is any tap root to the tree. So 
do not let a laugh weaken your conviction or resolution 
in God ; do not be afraid of ridicule and be led to offend 
against God because of the laughter of an ungodly 
companion. 

Then there are some that can stand a laugh that cannot 
stand a blow — malignant opposition, hindrances put in 
the way by the devil and his angels, obstacles to holy 
living and holy service. And there are still others that 
cannot stand their own lusts that offer a bait to them to 
draw them back from God into earth. We need in the 
first instance, to have the seed take hold on the soil and 
we need it to take root and to abide in the presence of 
God till it has got root and has become fastened, firmly 
fixed, until it penetrates to the lowermost conviction, and 
the lowermost affection^ and the lowermost resolution, 
and takes hold of the entire being. Then let the laugh 
come, let the opposing blow come, let the bait of the 
world come to us, we shall stand firm in God if the seed 
has got firm root in us. 

What is the third kind of soil? It is the soil where 
thorns spring up and choke the seed. Now notice that 
the best kind of soil frequently has weeds in it. In fact, 
weeds do not particularly like a poor soil. You need not 
be surprised, if you have got a heart that is disposed to 
obedience, to find all kinds of evil growth springing up in 
it that need continually to be uprooted and thrown aside 
in order that the seed of God might have more chance to 
grow. See how our dear Lord indicates to us what the 
thorns are : the care of the age, the deceitf ulness of riches, 
and the lust of other things enter in and choke the Word 



i88 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



and it becometh unfruitful. See the wonderful discrimi- 
nation of our Lord. What is the care of this world ? That 
is the poor man's thorn. What is the deceitfulness of 
riches ? That is the rich man's thorn. And what are the 
lusts of other things entering in but everybody's thorn. 
You may not have riches, but you have care; you 
may have riches and care together. Observe it is not only 
the rich man that is absorbed in greed ; the poorest man 
may be as greedy as the richest man ; the man that has 
nothing may be as covetous as the man that has every- 
thing. So our dear Lord says, " If you want the Word 
of God to take deep root in your hearts beware of the 
thorns, which, though they do not kill the seed, choke 
it and make it unfruitful." Paul says in the 12th chapter 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, " Let us lay aside every 
weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us." A sin 
is a sin, but'a weight is not necessarily a sin ; the weight 
is something that hinders my progress. Sin kills 
Christian living; weights hinder Christian advance. 
And so not to have the root at all is to lose all power from 
the Word ; and to have a root and no mature fruit is to 
have a Christian life that grows tall and slender and 
spindle-like and fruitless like a stalk of wheat that is not 
in ear. 

I should like for a moment to emphasise this thought 
— it is one of the grandest and most significant that I 
know in the New Testament. There are people in the 
Church of God who are true Christians, and have a 
sort of root in the soil of the Church, and a sort of stand- 
ing in the Church, but they have no mature fruit; they 
are erect, it may be, they are honest and honourable, 
and upright men and women ; you could not bring any- 
thing against their integrity, their honour, their general 
uprightness of character and course, but they have no 
fruit for God, they never win a soul to God, they are not 



THE SOWER AND THE SOIL 189 



large givers, they are not self-denying servants of God, 
they are not immersed in the work of God, they are not 
seeking to win the lost and uplift the fallen, they do not 
believe in home missions, or in foreign missions, they 
have not any seed of propagation because there is no 
ear and no grown corn in the ear. There is tallness, but 
no breadth ; there is a certain sort of growth without 
development. Our Lord never uses figures that do not 
illustrate, and this figure illustrates most painfully the 
subject with which He is dealing. I think it is the sorrow 
of pastors all over the world to-day that they have so 
many members in the body of Christ whose place they 
dare not dispute as disciples but whose fruit seems 
strangely conspicuous by its absence. On the other hand, 
here is a noble soul rooted in Jesus Christ, growing up 
into Jesus, that plucks up the thorns and thistles on 
every side to give plenty of room for growth and develop- 
ment, and then if you look you will find an ear with the 
full-grown kernel in the ear, the seed of propagation of 
Christian life and Christian influence on every side. 

Now, just a word or two in practical application. I 
want you to notice in the first place what I have said about 
(this precious seed of God. What makes a fruitful 
believer ? The fact that he recognises first of all that the 
precious seed sown in his heart is the gift of God. Did 
you ever think how precious seed wheat is? Suppose 
there were only one seed of wheat in the world to-day, 
and that seed were lost : all the efforts of man in this 
advanced period of the world's history could not create 
one new seed of wheat. If the last seed of wheat were gone 
it would be irrecoverable by the power of man. Here is 
the precious seed of the Word; suppose it were gone, 
all the wisdom of man could not reproduce it. It is the 
gift of God, and it can never be replaced by man if that 
gift is withdrawn* 



i 9 o ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



I want you to notice, too, in this parable that sowing is 
not at all conspicuous. Scarce a word is said about the 
sowing except the fact that the seed was sown. The 
emphasis is on the precious seed and on the various recep- 
tiveness of the soil, and the reason is that the sowing is 
not of much importance. A little child may drop a seed 
that shall be as effectively sown as though the most intelli- 
gent or cultured man or woman on earth had been the 
sower. Nay, the wind may carrv the kernel and lodge it 
in the forest or the ploughed field, and it shall spring up 
and be as potent for good as though an angel had dropped 
it into the soil. So the great thing is to be sure to see it 
scattered. Let the little children take it and sow it if they 
will ; let the unlettered believer be the sower if he will ; 
let the very winds of heaven waft the seed, only let it be 
sown broadcast over the earth. 

Then notice how important the believer feels it to be 
that the seed of God should get into the soil. What are 
you going to do with that trodden path yonder? The 
only way in which it can be made a fruitful harvest field 
is to run the plough through it, and because it is very 
hard the plough must go very deep, and there must be a 
sore breaking up of these trodden plods. If you want the 
seed of God to take root, you must consent to the plough- 
share going through you, and the stronger the plough- 
share is, and the more terrible its contest with the soil, the 
more you will know how much hardness there is to be 
overcome. Let us welcome God's plough-share of 
sorrow and tribulation ; let us welcome the providences 
that startle us from our security, that break up our dull- 
ness and listlessness ; let us welcome the sickness that 
brings us to the edge of death and of hell, if the change 
is to break up our indifference and banish our insensi- 
bility, and turn the trodden path into a furrowed field. 

I think, moreover we learn from this parable, in the 



THE SOWER ANDJ THE SOIL 



191 



first place, not to count too confidently on external results. 
If one seed out of four sown for God reaches the good soil 
and bears abundant fruit, it is all that the parable of the 
sower at the outset justifies us in expecting. We must 
know that a large part of our labour will appear to be in 
vain. If Christ Himself sowed seed on trodden fields, 
where it never took hold, on rocky places where it could 
not have found root, in thorny places where it never found 
room, you need not wonder if much of the labour which 
is bestowed seems to return to you vague and fruitless. 
Blessed be God, the missionaries of the cross who have 
encountered opposition and persecution, and the dead in- 
difference and inertia of heathen peoples, have gone on 
like Judson. When he was asked, "How bright is the 
prospect? " he replied, "Bright as the promises of God." 
Yet he laboured ten years, and had only eighteen converts 
to show for his labour. If one seed in four sprouts and 
bears fruit, it is all that the parable of the sower justifies 
you in expecting. 

Remember, in the second place, that one thoroughly 
converted man or woman is a great trophy of the grace of 
God. If one seed taking root in a soul means an ear and 
the full corn in the ear, thirty fold in a fruitful sou? -jives 
us the seed for another harvest when that soul has once 
received and developed the seed of the Word of God. 
Have you ever noticed that while in trie first parable the 
seed is the Word of God, in the second parable, the 
parable of the tares, the good seed are the children of the 
kingdom? What a sweet development of thought this 
is ! When you first go and sow the Word of God, the 
seed, you are simply declaring the message of salvation ; 
but when that seed springs out in the human soul the pro- 
duct you get is not mere Word of God, but it is disciples, 
and these disciples become in the second sowing the seed 
with which God covers the world. It is the Bible with 



192 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



the man behind it, it is the believer with the message of a 
believer by which God changes the face of this world. 

Do you want me to tell you in a sentence how that seed 
can be fruitful? I will tell you. Take what you have 
heard and what you know, and go, and in the silence and 
secrecy of a place of communion with God, open your 
heart to the celestial dew, asking God to bless the truth 
that you are acquainted with unto your own soul; ask 
Him that it may take root in your mind and heart and 
conscience and will, till it takes up the very substance of 
your being into itself ; and then seek to live in such a way, 
plucking up the thorns and thistles in your life and 
putting away the weights that hinder your Christian 
progress, that you may not only have root, but room, and, 
having room, abundant fruit. 



X 



A Wondrous Condescension 

" Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear 
My voice and open the door I will come in to him, and will sup 
with him, and he with Me." — Revelation iii. 20. 

THIS is at once a picture and a parable : a 
picture, for it has in it the pictorial form of re- 
presentation ; a parable, for it teaches us through 
symbols a most precious lesson. There are four con- 
spicuous places in the New Testament in which the same 
figure is used ; a door opening into some apartment, a key 
wherewith to open it, and the door either shut or open, as 
the case may be. For instance, in Matthew, the 7th 
chapter and 7th verse, we read : " Ask and it shall be given 
you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be 
opened unto you." There the door is the door of suppli- 
cations. If we knock, the door will be opened. In the 
25th chapter of Matthew, in the parable of the wise and 
foolish virgins, when the marriage procession entered 
into the marriage chamber or place of festivity, the door 
was shut. Afterwards the foolish virgins came and 
knocked and called in vain. He, from within, said, " I 
know you not." Then in the Epistle indited to the 
cfiurch at Philadelphia we have the door standing open, 
having been unlocked by the key of David in the hand 
of the omnipotent and omniscient Redeemer. And now 
we have in this passage a door shut. The door in the 

193 Q 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



25th of Matthew is the door to celestial blessing and 
privilege. The door in the Epistle to Philadelphia 
is the door of opportunity and access. The door here is 
the door to the human heart. 

I think there is, perhaps, scarce a single passage in the 
New Testament that combines more encouragement with 
warning than these words of Christ to the Laodicean 
Church, " Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any 
man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to 
him and will sup with him, and he with Me." 

Now, obviously, there are three great prominent 
thoughts here. The first is the request ; the second is the 
response ; and the third is the result. 

It is one of those pictures, those pictorial parables, that 
a little child can understand. It is not couched in lan- 
guage with which we are not familiar. It is not itself the 
suggestion of an illustration from any of the obscure 
sciences, or from historical facts, or events that are not 
generally known. Here we meet the most familiar objects 
almost that can have impressed our vision. It is impos- 
sible to go a hundred steps in any city without coming 
upon a house with a doorway, and with a knocker and a 
bell. You can scarcely go anywhere in the rural districts 
for any distance without coming upon a mansion or an 
obscure hovel. And we all know what the door means, 
and what the knocking means, and what the coming in 
means, and what the supping means. How blessed and 
gracious that the Lord should have put instruction for 
us in such a form that a little child can comprehend and 
apprehend it, by a pictorial illustration like a picture book 
for our instruction. Here, in the first place, is Christ 
without and the soul within. Then there is the soul 
opening the shut door, and Christ enters and Himself is 
within. 

Now, first, look at Christ outside, and then let us look 



A WONDROUS CONDESCENSION 195 



at Him inside. Then see how He comes inside, and what 
a difference it makes. 

First He is outside. "Behold I stand at the door and 
knock." 

The first thing that impresses me in this wonderful 
picture is condescension. Who is this that is asking to 
come in ? Who is this whose pierced hand knocks at the 
door, and whose gentle voice calls the soul by name and 
asks to be admitted ? — for you notice that the knocking is 
accompanied by a calling. That is an Oriental custom. 
When Peter went out of his prison down to the house of 
Mary, the mother of John, where many were gathered 
together praying, he knocked at the gate, but he called 
also ; and when Rhoda came to hearken she heard Peter's 
voice, and she went in and told how he stood before the 
gate. We go and knock, but we do not often call. But 
in Eastern lands they accompanied the knock with the 
voice of the one who knocked. And so our Lord says, 
" If any man hear My voice," not simply My knock — "if 
any man hear My voice and open the door." Look at the 
condescension. 

If I were asked to say what it is that distinguishes 
the Christian religion above all other religions, what 
do you think would be the answer? What is it that 
peculiarly distinguishes the Christian religion above 
all others? It is not incarnation, for other religions 
have taught that God was manifest in the flesh. 
It is not sacrifice, for other religions have taught even 
bloody rites of sacrifice. It is not worship, for worship is 
common to all religions. What is it? The Christian 
religion is mainly peculiar for this : it is the only religion 
among men that has ever represented God as seeking 
man. Other nations represent man as seeking God. 
That is the uniform peculiarity of them all, from the 
lowest fetish worship to the highest form of Brahminical 



i 9 6 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



idolatry, or Mahommedanism without either. Man is 
always represented as seeking God. But in the Christian 
religion alone, God is represented as seeking man. You 
may look in any other religion in vain to find such a 
phrase as you will find in the 4th chapter of the Gospel 
according to John, at the 23rd verse: "For the Father 
seeketh such to worship Him." Men seek to worship 
God, even under false forms. But the only God that ever 
sought worshippers is Jehovah. The only God that ever 
looked down on rebels and said, " How shall I put thee 
among the children ? " is our God. The only God that 
ever came down among men to lift men up to Himself is 
God in Christ. 

Now, here you have the very Saviour Himself, the 
incarnate Son of God, coming and standing before a 
human soul that has rejected and repelled Him, and, 
knocking at the door, and standing knocking, and calling 
patiently to induce the soul to open the door to His 
incoming. 

Now let us try to get, first of all, this magnificent con- 
ception of the condescension of grace, that God did not 
leave men to find Hkn, but found them; that God did 
not leave men to love Him, but loved them ; that God did 
not leave men to seek Him, but sought them ; that God 
did not leave men to make the first approaches unto Him- 
self, but made the first approaches to them. And I be- 
lieve that that is, after all, the substance of the doctrine of 
election, that God loved us when we hated Him, that 
God sought us when we rejected Him, that God atoned 
for us when we hated Him, and that the whole of the 
grand plan and its execution and its application begins 
and ends with Him. 

Now see how this very passage of Scripture indicates 
the condescension of Christ. To whom were these words 
addressed ? To the church of the Laodiceans, to whom 



A WONDROUS CONDESCENSION 197 



also has been addressed the most scathing rebuke that is 
to be found in those seven epistles. In fact, I do not 
know that there is a more terrible message in the Word 
of God than that message to Laodicea. "I would thou 
wert cold or hot ; so, then, because thou art lukewarm, 
and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My 
mouth." Yet it is to this very people to whom this epistle 
addresses this scathing, scourging message, in which the 
precious Saviour is represented as standing outside the 
door, knocking on the door, standing knocking as though 
not easily discouraged by the indifference of the soul 
within, and calling with the sweet voice of gracious in- 
tonation that He might win the rebel soul to open unto 
Him. 

This is a wonderful picture. You cannot find any- 
thing like that in any other religion. The Christian 
religion alone ever set the Son of God before the closed 
door of the human soul, knocking, and calling, and ask- 
ing to come in. 

Now what is the condition of the soul? The door is 
closed, and Christ is without. What a picture of the 
desolation and destitution of sin. God not in all the 
thoughts; God not in all the affections; God not in all 
the resolutions, and plans, and purposes; God unspoken 
of except in the language of rebellion, of hatred, perhaps 
of blasphemy; God deliberately shut out from a man's 
life, conversation, conduct, hopes, desires, projects; God 
forgotten, though He is merciful ; God ignored, though 
He is sovereign ; God despised, though He is gracious ; 
God resisted, though He is a God of love ; destitution as 
well as desolation ; poor, wretched, miserable, blind, 
naked, and yet like an idiot, like'a lunatic, who clothes 
himself in rags and sits on a three-legged stool and waves 
a rod in his hand and plaits thorns and puts them on 
his brow, and then he is a king. Thou knowest not that 



198 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



thou art wretched. Poor and miserable, and blind and 
naked, he says : " I am rich and increased in goods, and 
have need of nothing." That is the condition of any 
soul when God is outside. There are poverty and misery 
and desolation and destitution inside, but withal there is 
an ignorance of the actual state of things. Men go about 
to establish their own righteousness, and do not submit 
themselves to the righteousness of God. They look on 
their filthy rags, and they think that they are royal robes, 
and they imagine that they could go before the presence 
of the Almighty in those filthy garments, for they do not 
see the filth or the rags. 

Now look at the other side of this picture. Christ is 
without. Let us see Him within. See His marvellous 
works. "If any man hear My voice and will open the 
door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and 
he with Me." " I will come in to him." Entrance. "And 
will sup with him, and he with Me." Communion. 
When Jesus Christ comes into the soul everything that is 
divine comes in with it — eye-salve that anoints the eyes 
so that we see the rags and the filth, and see Him in His 
glory ; the gold tried in the fire that makes rich ; and the 
white raiment of divine righteousness to clothe our naked- 
ness. That is a wonderful guest that knocks on the door. 
If He comes in He comes in not to be entertained, but to 
entertain. He comes in not to live on your bounty, but 
to have you live on His. He comes in not to take of your 
hospitality, but to become the host while He is the guest 
and to spread a table before you in the presence of your 
enemies, and to anoint your head with oil, so that your 
cup runneth over. There never have been any visitors 
on earth come to the hovels of the poor in such a fashion 
as that. Christ comes to bring with Him everything you 
need, to displace desolation by beauty, and to displace 
destitution by wealth. He comes to supply your poor 



A WONDROUS CONDESCENSION 199 



table with the bread and the water of life and all the deli- 
cacies of God. He comes to fill your wardrobe with 
raiment such as angels might covet, and crowd your 
house with the gold of the celestial city. 

I want you to notice, too, how remarkable is the reitera- 
tion, the apparent repetition here. " I will come in to 
him, and will sup with him, and he with Me" Of 
course, if a man sups with me I sup with him. But 
Christ would make it plain that it is not only a conferment 
of blessing, but a mutual participation. And this, again, 
can only be understood by reference to Oriental custom. 
You are going through Palestine, we will say, at the pre- 
sent day. A man sees you passing by the house when 
a meal is served, and he has nothing, it maybe, but a few 
dried dates or raisins, and a little bread and water, and he 
asks you to come and sit down with him and enjoy his 
simple repast. Now, if you had such an invitation it 
would be considered a kind of insult if you did not partake 
of what was offered. He expects not only that you will 
sit down at his table, but that you w T ill share in his repast ; 
and that sharing in his repast is a kind of covenant be- 
tween you and him. If you partake of the salt of his dish 
it makes you both friends. It is the salt of covenant, and 
he can never lift his hand against you, nor you lift your 
hand against him henceforth. I remember that many 
years ago there was an Arab who was travelling among 
those nomadic tribes in the East, and he came, unknown 
to himself, on the very tent of his arch enemy. He did 
not recognise the other robber chieftain in whose tent he 
was, and at whose board he was sitting; but the robber 
chieftain, who was his arch enemy, recognised him, and 
he knew that if that man should take salt at his repast 
he could never again lift his hand against him ; so he 
managed to get out of the tent and leave others to conduct 
the repast ; and then when the man had left the tent ana* 



2oo ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



gone on his way he pursued him and killed him. Now, 
our blessed Lord, speaking to Oriental people, speaking 
to them in the language of Oriental life, says, "I will 
come in to him and will sup with him, and he with Me; 
and for us to partake of the same salt of the covenant 
shall make us everlastingly one." It is union and com- 
munion. It is participation in the same blessed privi- 
leges and provisions. 

And there is another very sweet ancl beautiful thought 
about it. This suggests the idea that our Lord not only 
confers a blessing but receives one; that He not only 
gives us satisfaction in His presence, but gets satisfaction 
out of our presence. I think this is one of the most 
beautiful thoughts presented to us in the Bible, that "The 
Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in them that 
hope in His mercy." You often think of what God can 
do for you. Do you ever think of what you can do for 
God ? We often talk about our trusting God. Have we 
a holy ambition to be such men and women as that it shall 
be possible for God to trust us ? We think of our loving 
God. Do we ever think of His loving us ? We think of 
God's giving us pleasure. Do we ever think of our 
giving Him pleasure? And yet our blessed Lord indi- 
cates that if the door is opened to Him, and He comes in 
to a soul that has hitherto excluded Him, He is going to 
bring a blessing and to get blessing; He is going to 
confer good and to receive it ; He is going to impart joy, 
and His own divine heart is going to get a thrill of joy 
from the obedience, and the confidence, and the com- 
munion of the willing soul. 

Now let us look, in conclusion, at the way in which 
Christ gets inside, and at the marvellous change that 
takes place. 

Just two things. " If any man hear My voice and will 
open the door." Now, is there a child that does not 



A WONDROUS CONDESCENSION 201 



understand what that means? You are inside a closed 
door, and somebody else is outside. You hear a knock; 
you hear a call; you go and listen. The knock is re- 
peated, and the voice utters a name, the name of him 
who is knocking, and the name of you who are inside. 
You turn the key, withdraw the bolt, and turn the knob. 
You open the door: "Friend, enter." Anybody under- 
stands what that means. Hearing means attending to 
the voice; and opening the door means responding with 
the will. And so I say to those who are enquiring the 
way to Christ, there is no need for enquiring any more, 
for it is perfectly simple. Have you Heard the invitation 
of the gospel ? Then, the first condition is fulfilled — Hf 
any man hear My voice." Are you ready to open ? Do 
you choose Christ as your Saviour ? Do you say, " Lord, 
come in, Thou blessed One, and occupy my whole being. 
I no more reject Thee and rebel against Thee and repel 
Thy presence. I gladly welcome Thee " ? Then, the 
second condition is fulfilled : you open the door. Why, 
that is so simple that I am afraid of making it obscure by 
saying anything more about it. 

But I want to add this. It is a very important thing 
that we should understand — and I never like to obscure 
this fact — that the Lord Jesus Christ never enters a house 
without taking possession of it. Sometimes, when a 
guest comes to our house, we open the guest-chamber and 
the drawing-room and the dining-room, but the rest of 
the house is shut. W^e should not like to have it ex- 
plored. It is not quite in order, and we do not like our 
guests to go where they are not asked to go. But when 
the Lord Jesus Christ comes in, if He comes at all, the 
whole house is His. There is a provision in law in 
America that in the exchange of property in real estate — 
a house, for instance — to retain one single apartment, 
though it is nothing but a cupboard or a pantry or a 



202 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



wardrobe in that house, vitiates the deed of transfer. In 
America such an act of transfer would not stand one 
single hour. If you say, " I transfer to A or B this entire 
piece of property, only reserving to myself this cupboard 
under the stairs," the law would show that it is no trans- 
fer. The whole property must go, or you cannot transfer 
the house at all, for if you retain that cupboard under trie 
stairs you retain the right to get to it, and go to and fro 
to put what you will in it and take what you will out of 
it. That implies a passage w T ay through the house, and 
the right to come in at the door, and come in when you 
please. That is no kind of transfer. 

There are a great many people that pretend to 
open their hearts to Jesus Christ, but who have 
got a locked cupboard somewhere. They are will- 
ing that He should come into the drawing-room, 
especially if it is cleaned up and made all nice and 
beautiful. They are willing that He should go into the 
guest-chamber and tarry. They are willing that He 
should come into the dining-room, especially if He sets 
the table Himself with His own dainties. But they 
would like to have the rest of the house locked up. 
There are some idols there that they do not want Him to 
see. There are some bad thoughts that they do not want 
Him to explore. There are some hoarded treasures of sin 
there which they do not want to have cast out. And so, 
as my dear friend Mr. Meyer once said, "When the Lord 
comes into a house, and finds that a part of it is shut 
against Him, He walks out again witn a sad look, and, 
perhaps, with a tear in His eye." Christ considers that 
if you hold back any part of yourself from Him you have 
not surrendered anything to Him. Tf you let Him in 
on a Sunday, and exclude Him during the week, you 
have not let Him in at all. If you let Him in by day, 
and exclude Him by night, you have not let Him in at 



A WONDROUS CONDESCENSION 203 



all. If you let Him in during a day of fasting and 
prayer, and in a day of business exclude Him, there has 
been no real entrance. He wants the whole man, or 
none of it. " I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, 
because thou art lukewarm, I will spue thee out of My 
mouth." 

I wish that I could tell you what a blessed thing it is 
just to be wholly the Lord's. There never comes any 
comfort to a human soul until Christ takes entire posses- 
sion. When He takes the candle of the law, and goes 
with you through the house, and opens every locked 
cupboard, every place, every room, large or small, and 
when the house becomes cleaner from top to bottom, 
so that there is nothing whatever in it that He 
does not understand, and nothing whatsoever in it 
that you would, for a moment, hide from Him; 
when you can say with the Psalmist, " Purge me 
with hyssop, and I shall be clean : wash me and I shall 
be whiter than snow : try me, O God, and know my heart : 
prove me and know my thought: see if there be any 
wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting " ; 
when you come where you would not have a thought that 
you would hide from Christ, or an affection that you 
would not have to centre about Him, or a resolution that 
you would not have twined about Him, or a conscientious 
judgment that you would not have according to His will, 
or a purpose or a plan which He is not in the midst of, 
and of which He is not the inspiration ; then, indeed, 
you have thrown the door open to Christ and He is 
inside. 

Is not that very simple? Now, this precious truth 
demands immediate action. You hear His voice, do you 
not? Is your hand on the lock? You have the key. 
He will not force an entrance. He never comes into a 
human soul where the obstacles to His coming are not 



2o 4 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



removed, and where He does not get a warm' welcome. 
When He comes you may have been like Saul of Tarsus 
up to that moment, righting against God, and shutting 
and locking and bolting the doors of your heart, lest the 
Son of God should come in. It makes no difference. 
If you now hear His voice, and turn the key in the lock, 
and turn the knob, and fling open the door, and say in 
penitence and faith, " My Lord and my God, come in and 
take possession : there shall be nothing withholden from 
Thee," it will not be a moment before He is inside. It 
takes but an instant for a man to pass from without to 
within when the door is open ; and, great as the change 
is, it can all be accomplished as quickly as I can raise 
my hand if there is a willing heart, if there is a sub- 
missive will, and if there is a real desire for the Lord and 
Saviour. 

Oh, how many times I have been visited by people 
who are called "enquirers," who say that they do not see 
how to be reconciled to God : they do not see how to accept 
Jesus Christ. I think the reason is that people imagine 
to themselves a great ceremony, something that will be 
involved and delicate and difficult to manage, something 
that takes time to manage, something that requires a 
certain amount of preparation in order to accomplish it. 
But the Lord says, " I am outside, and you are inside. 
If you hear My voice and open the door, I will come 
inside and sup with you, and you shall sup with Me." 
And if we understand the parable and the picture, it 
means simply this — that if you, to whom the message of 
salvation comes, no longer want to exclude Him, but 
want to admit Him, and will do your part in the opening 
of the closed door, He will do His part in coming in ; 
and you will find all the blessings that His coming in 
involves. But if you shut Him out now — hear this — if 
you shut Him out now, the time will come when you will 



A WONDROUS CONDESCENSION 205 



stand at another closed door, as He stands at a closed 
door now, and, although you knock, although you call, 
the only answer will be, "Depart from Me," and it will 
be a terrible thing when the same voice that has said, 
"Open unto Me, and I will come irt and bless you," is 
compelled to say, " Depart from Me. The door is shut." 



XI 

The Preacher and His Message 

"And as He reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and 
judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way 
for this time. When I have a convenient season I will call for 
thee." — Acts xxiv. 25. 

IT is not very often that a sermon is preached to one 
man ; but we have here a scene in court, where, 
although the wife, Drusilla, was present, and doubt- 
less some of the members of the immediate staff of 
the governor, a sermon was preached by one of the 
greatest preachers of history to one of the most profligate 
and wicked men of history. There are many things 
about the preacher and the hearer that have such valuable 
lessons, that we may well spend a few minutes consider- 
ing them. 

First about the preacher. He was a very evangelical 
preacher ; that is to say, he confined his preaching to the 
gospel. Most court preachers have not preached the 
gospel very faithfully. They have catered for the tastes 
of the audience to whom they have spoken, and apolo- 
gised for royal faults and failings, and, since they were 
getting their living from the court, they have been in 
bondage to motives of policy. But here was a prisoner 
virtually in bonds brought out of his jail to confront a 
Roman governor, and the first thing we notice about his 
preaching is that it was upon the subject of faith in 
Christ. The blessed man who, all through his missionary 

206 



THE PREACHER AND HIS MESSAGE 2o? 



journeys, knew nothing but "Jesus Christ and Him 
crucified," had not exhausted the great theme yet, and he 
had nothing to bring before Felix, the governor, but the 
same grand old truth, upon which he had so many times 
discoursed, Jesus Christ and the blessedness of the faith 
that is placed upon Him. 

And then we notice that this was a logical sermon, for 
he " reasoned " of righteousness, temperance, and judg- 
ment to come. There are some preachers who are exces- 
sively dogmatic. They speak with authority, but not as 
with God-derived authority. They speak as though they 
expected everybody to bow before what they think and 
what they say. Paul had no confidence in his own 
thoughts or in his own words. He sought, first of all, to 
get the thought of God, and then put as nearly as might 
be that which the Holy Ghost taught him. But you will 
notice that Paul did not forget that in every man's own 
nature there is something to which to appeal. Why did 
God give us a reason, why did God give us a conscience, 
why did He give us a will, if He did not mean that all 
truth should appeal to our reasoning powers, to our con- 
science with its moral judgment, and to our will with 
its grand power of choice ? All preaching ought to find 
in the human soul something with which to grapple. It 
should be addressed to the instincts of men. It should 
appeal to their reason, to their moral judgment, to their 
powers of thought and powers of love. And one of the 
reasons why no soul can be guiltless before God for 
rejecting this gospel, is that this gospel appeals to every 
one of us as to whether it does not bear in itself the marks 
of being a divine gospel. God does not ask of you a 
blind faith, but he asks a reasonable faith. He says that 
every man should be ready to give an answer to those 
that ask a reason for the hope that is in him. "Come 
now, let us reason together," saith the Lord. And so 



2o8 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



Paul " reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judg- 
ment to come." 

Now, what is righteousness? Righteousness is 
derived from " right " ; and what is right ? Right is a 
mathematical idea lifted to the moral sphere. That is to 
say, right is a conception taken from the ordinary things 
of life, like a right angle, like a straight way, and lifted 
to the moral sphere to apply to a right form of conduct, a 
righteous style of character. What is temperance? 
Temperance is self-control. Temperance is keeping in 
subjection the bodily appetites and passions and lusts, 
and everything with regard to us, to the higher dominion 
of conscience, of reason, of the truth, and of the Spirit of 
God. What is the doctrine about a judgment to come 
but the doctrine that there shall be hereafter, beyond this 
life, a great assize, a great court of judgment, where the 
things that have not been rightly adjusted in this world 
shall be divinely compensated, and where the punish- 
ments not meted out for sin in this life shall be properly 
and judiciously inflicted ? 

Now, I say that while righteousness, temperance, and 
judgment to come are all of them plain truths declared 
in the Word of God, they are truths about which we can 
reason. That is, they are truths that do not come to us 
simply with the arbitrary authority of the Word of God. 
They are not simply founded upon the "say so," even of 
God ; but they are founded also upon the concurrent testi- 
mony of our own nature. Take that matter of righteous- 
ness. Is there any man living who does not feel con- 
vinced, without any special reasoning on the subject, that 
it is his duty to lead a right life ? One of the things that 
do not need to be proven from any pulpit is that it is 
the bounden obligation of every man and every woman 
for the sake of self, for the sake of everybody else, and for 
the sake of Almighty God, to do just exactly what is right 



THE PREACHER AND HIS MESSAGE 209 



and to let alone everything that is wrong. You cannot 
say, and you dare not say, that you Tiave a right to do 
as you please. You have no right to do what you please 
unless you please to do what is right. We are not inde- 
pendent of each other. Your actions influence others; 
your course influences others ; your example influences 
others. We are bound together in society. We are 
dove-tailed in the great fabric of the State, and of the 
family, which is only a smaller state. No man has a 
right to do violence to himself ; no man has a right to do 
violence to his neighbour. You have no right to do that 
which warps your own character, which injures yourself ; 
nor have you any right to do anything, however slight, 
that may imperil the virtue, the truthfulness, the upright- 
ness, and the success of your neighbour, so that 
righteousness, apart entirely from any revelation from 
God, is a revelation in the soul of man. It is something 
about which every man can reason apart from revelation, 
and come to conclusions without any light from God on 
the subject. The fact is that there are many things in the 
Word of God which, while they are revelations of truth, 
are confirmations of what is already revealed in us, and 
righteousness is one of those great revelations which 
strike an answering chord in every human soul. 

Now, about temperance. Have you any doubt, aside 
entirely from the testimony of the Word of God, that it 
is the bounden duty of every man and every woman to 
keep the lower nature in subordination to the higher 
nature? Is there any one of you that doubts for a 
moment that your appetite for food and for drink belongs 
to your lower nature — that your power to think, your 
power to love, your power to morally judge, and vour 
power to choose that which is good, belong to a higher 
realm of your being? Why, you have no more doubt 
of it than that the cellar of the house is down below 7 

p 



210 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

the drawing-room and the dining-room and the guest- 
chamber — that it belongs, not only in the structure, 
lowermost, but that it is inferior in quality and import- 
ance to the rest. You see, temperance is something 
about which one can reason. We do not need revelation 
to show us that we ought to be temperate, that is, self- 
controlled, keeping the lower parts of our nature in 
subjection to the higher parts of our nature. And see 
how the logic leads us. If it is my duty to keep the lower 
part of my nature in subordination to the higher, then it 
is my duty to keep the whole of my nature, higher and 
lower alike, under the control of the divine nature, which 
is still higher even than my spiritual life. 

How about a judgment to come ? Do we need a revela- 
tion from God to us to show that there is a judgment to 
come? I do not think we do. You all know that if there 
is a God He must properly sustain His own law. Now 
the sanctions of law, so-called, are the reward of obedience 
on the one side, and the punishment of evil on the other. 
You all know that all that is good does not get rewarded 
in this world ; and you all know that all that is evil does 
not get punished in this world. If there is to be a vindi- 
cation of God as the Moral Governor of this world, there 
must come some rewards and some punishments beyond 
this life which we never see bestowed or inflicted here. 
So, aside from revelation, the judgment to come is some- 
thing about which we can reason. See how simple the 
reasoning is. A just God will reward obedience and 
punish disobedience. That is the first proposition. 
Secondly, it is perfectly plain that a just God does not 
always punish disobedience, and does not always 
reward virtue in this world. What is the conclu- 
sion ? Therefore a just God has another court of judg- 
ment and another realm of retribution beyond this world. 
That is the reasoning about a judgment to come, anc} it 



THE PREACHER AND HIS MESSAGE 211 



is reasoning that no man or woman in the possession of 
the senses and of the reason and conscience can for one 
moment deny. I suppose that in some such way as that, 
Paul, instead of placing all that he had to say upon some 
declaration of Holy Scripture, some word of God, put it 
to Felix as he preached before him in prison, whether the 
doctrine of righteousness and of temperance, and of judg- 
ment to come, did not find an answering signal in his own 
bosom. Why, it is impossible to preach such a truth as 
that in any place without an echo coming from every man 
and woman. 

Now notice that, in the next place, Paul preached a 
very personal and very practical sermon. There are 
some sermons that rebuke the sins that existed a hundred 
and fifty years ago, and they are very safe, for they do 
not touch anybody in this present age particularly. The 
kind of preaching that the world needs to-day is preach- 
ing about present sin ; preaching that touches man's con- 
science with regard to his own guilt. That is exactly 
what Paul did. Whom did he have before him ? A 
Roman libertine and a Jewish Cleopatra, a man that lived 
in the violation of his own conscience every day, a man 
that stultified his own reason, a man that was under the 
control of his own lusts, and a woman that shared with 
him the iniquity of his imperial life. See how Paul ven- 
tured to attack that same callous governor with regard to 
the practical sins of his own life. He reasoned of right- 
eousness ; he reasoned of temperance ; he reasoned of 
judgment to come. Do you want to see what ground he 
had for preaching a sermon on these three topics ? See 
what we are told here about Felix, even if we knew nothing 
else about him. "As he reasoned of righteousness, tem- 
perance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and 
answered, ' Go thy way for this time. When I have a 
convenient season I will call for thee,' " 



212 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

There is the sin of procrastination, putting off a duty 
to another time. That is one of the first forms of un- 
righteousness. Righteousness, the moment that it 
beholds a law of right, conforms to it. The moment 
that it recognises a call of God, it heeds it. 
The moment that it sees the finger of God, it obeys 
the divine beck. The moment it hears the voice of 
conscience, it surrenders to the authority of the moral 
sense. The man to whom Paul reasoned of righteous- 
ness shows himself an unrighteous man, because, when 
trembling with the consciousness of his own guilt 
under Paul's showing of duty, he said, " Go thy way tor 
this time." He would not yield prompt obedience to the 
voice of his own conscience, and of the truth and of the 
Spirit of God. 

Now read the next verse : " He hoped also that 
money should have been given Rim of Paul that 
he might loose him ; therefore he sent for him the oftener 
and communed with him." Think of that. Here is a 
demagogue, a leader of the people. Here is a man who 
holds the position of a governor, bound to hold the scales 
of even-handed justice and administer righteousness in 
the name of the Most High ; and yet when he knows that 
Paul is a prisoner without guilt, and that there is no cause 
of death in him and no cause of bondage, he keeps him 
in jail, and sends for him from time to time to talk with 
him in hope that Paul will yield to his avarice and satisfy 
his greed by offering a ransom for his release. Does not 
that man need to have temperance preached to him? 
What is temperance ? Subjecting the lusts to reason and 
conscience. Here is a lust of sensuality, of which that 
man was guilty ; here is a lust of avarice of which He was 
guilty, and the proof that he needed a sermon on temper- 
ance is shown in the very fact that greed led him to send 
for Paul in hopes that he would get a ransom offered 



THE PREACHER AND HIS MESSAGE 213 



for his release. Read the next verse: "But after two 
years Porcius Festus came into Felix's room," as gover- 
nor, " and Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left 
Paul bound." He wanted to curry favour with the Jews 
so that he might, perhaps through their hands, get 
another position under the Roman government by getting 
a favourable report to the Roman emperor with respect to 
his administration ; and so trying in this way to pro- 
pitiate the Jews from motives of policy, he left Paul in 
bonds after two years of imprisonment, when, as the 
governor, he had no reason to believe that there was any 
fault in that man that justified incarceration. Did not 
that man need to have a judgment to come preached to 
him ? Why, there he was, a judge perverting judgment. 
There he was, a man sworn to administer the law in the 
name of justice, and with high-handed injustice and 
oppression he was keeping a man in bonds, simply 
because it was a matter of policy to propitiate the Jews 
and gain their good opinion. 

Now notice, in the next place, with regard to this evan- 
gelical sermon, this logical sermon, this personal sermon, 
this practical sermon, what a grandly courageous sermon 
it was. There was a man in bonds; there was a man 
before him that might release him. Had he spoken in 
such terms as to get the good opinion of Felix by flatter- 
ing him for his so-called virtues, and screening him from 
the accusation of his own vices, he might have been 
turned loose. But in the fear of God, and not of man, 
a prisoner in bonds, and going to Rome to be tried for 
his life, he ventured to stand before that man and preach 
to him one of the most practical, one of the most pointed, 
and one of the most searching sermons ever delivered 
in the Christian dispensation. I have a sort of admira- 
tion for courageous bravery that amounts to little short 
of adoration. I think that if there is any Divine attri- 



2i 4 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

bute in a godly man, it is absolute allegiance to the truth. 
I have a great admiration for such men as Curran, who, 
in his defence of Bond, when round about him in the 
very audience-chamber where he was delivering that great 
address, he heard the clattering of the arms of antagonists 
and assassins that were there to deprive him of his 
courage, he turned round and said to them, " You may 
assassinate me, but you cannot intimidate me." Paul 
virtually said to this Roman governor, "You may take 
off my head, but you cannot take out of me my courage." 

Brave soul. We have very few brave souls in the world 
to-day in comparison with the great mass of men. Why, 
there are newspapers that can be sold from Saturday 
night to Monday night to take any side that is expedient 
in the interests of policy. The best talent of Europe 
to-day is for sale in the market for or against despotism. 
There are men in governing positions to-day that were 
lifted from the position of plebians to the position of 
patricians by buying of titles of nobility to get their 
influence. These things are common in all lands, and 
even in Christian lands. There is some purchasable and 
infamous scoundrel in high places who has round about 
him a military or a political glory, and you have only to 
pierce the halo of his fame to find how rotten is his moral 
character. And it is an awful pity and shame that into 
the pulpit where, above all things, truth should stand 
absolutely enthroned and enshrined, and men should 
dare to be loyal to God, and their conscience, and their 
fellow-men — it is an awful pity that in some pulpits of 
Christendom there is a covering over of the most awful 
truths because they are not altogether tasteful to the 
natural mind. But blessed be God for such a man as 
Paul, who dared to face such a man as Felix, and reason 
to him about righteousness, and temperance, and judg- 
ment to come. 



THE PREACHER AND HIS MESSAGE 215 



I want you to now notice how powerful that sermon 
was. " Felix trembled." There was a kind of reversal of 
positions there. Felix was nominally a judge, and Paul 
was nominally a culprit. The fact is that Felix was the 
culprit, and Paul was the judge ; and the culprit trembled 
on his throne before the prisoner that came from a jail, 
and very possibly came in chains. Great, indeed, is the 
power of spiritual truth and spiritual uprightness. It 
makes a man mighty to speak before kings and not be 
ashamed. And great is the power of sin, and falsehood, 
and corruption, and moral rottenness to make a king 
tremble on his throne before a prisoner in bonds. It 
was a mighty sermon ; but I want you to remember that 
it was not the might of the man who preached it that 
made that sermon powerful. It was the truth which he 
preached, and it was the inward conscious corruption of 
the man to whom he was preaching. You have seen a 
dog in the street take up a rat and shake him until he 
shook the life out of him. You have seen one animal 
tear in pieces and devour another. Truth can take hold 
of you with the strong grip of the consciousness of its 
own mightiness, and shake you until you tremble like an 
aspen leaf ; until, as it were, you are torn limb from limb. 
The man that dares to make his conscience his enemy 
has in his own soul the foundations of hell. The man 
that has got a falsehood underneath his life is the man 
that is in constant terror of the demon to whom he has 
given admission to his own soul. 

I know a man in America who is occupying 
a high position in the State. I happen to know 
that in that man's life there is an awful moral 
rottenness. It is not a thing commonly known, but 
it is there, and that man stands in mortal terror that 
to-morrow morning may possibly bring to the knowledge 
of the community the fact of that awful moral transgres- 



sib Arthur t. pIerson, t>.D. 



sion of the past that he has tried in every way to cover 
over from the sight of man and the sight of God. It is 
an awful thing to have down beneath your feet a smoking 
volcanic crater, though there may be a thin covering of 
cool lava above it on which you venture to place your 
timid feet. And there are men, and there are women, 
without doubt in every country, who have just such a 
smoking crater underneath their feet, and the heat of that 
fire blisters their feet as they stand on the thin covering 
of lava. Now, if you are not at ease with yourself, how 
about God? If you cannot stand yourself up before 
yourself, and hold communion with yourself, what are 
you going to do when you stand before God? If con- 
science makes you tremble, and holds you in her awful 
grasp, and shakes you with the fury of a madman, what 
are you going to do when, in the calmness of the great 
white throne, God's eyes look upon you and pierce " to 
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joints and mar- 
row," and you feel as though the very thoughts and 
intents of your heart were unrolled in a panorama before 
the assembled universe to be looked upon by them ? 

In one of the American cities a murderer was taken up 
by the officers of the law. They put him in gaol over 
night, until proper steps could be taken for his trial, and 
there was very insignificant evidence to fix guilt upon him 
— nothing but circumstantial evidence. Possibly he could 
never have been convicted in an American Court, or even 
in an English Court, on that slender basis of circum- 
stances. But the next morning he was found dead. He 
had hung himself by his own suspenders to a hook in 
the wall. He could not stand a night with his own 
conscience without suicide. I want you to be delivered 
from the dominion of your own consciousness of guilt. 
It is not God that is your enemy only. While you are 
under the curse of sin, you are your own enemy. It is 



THE PREACHER AND 1-1 Is MESSAGE 2i? 



not only hell that threatens to engulf you. You have 
got a hell inside. It is not the law of God only that is 
held over you like a sword on a single hair. The sword 
of your own convictions is piercing your own soul while 
you are in solitude. 

Now, we have seen what Paul, the great preacher, did. 
I want, finally, to see what Felix, the governor, did. He 
said, " Go thy way for this time." Men come very near 
salvation and miss it. There was a godless man sitting 
on the throne, with the impious partner of his crimes 
beside him. There was a humble culprit by law, though 
innocent in the eye of God, reasoning about righteous- 
ness, temperance, and judgment to come, and holding 
up the Christ as the fulfilment of God's righteous claims, 
as the bestower of the Holy Spirit, through whom the 
chief control comes into the upper parts of a man's being 
to hold the lower parts in subjection, and by whose grace 
we are delivered from the fear of judgment to come. Paul 
undoubtedly pressed Jesus Christ on Felix that day. He 
undoubtedly besought him to find a refuge in Christ for 
his unrighteousness, a hope in Christ for a temperate 
restraint of evil passions and lusts, and deliverance from 
his accountability to God. I suppose that Felix might 
have found Christ that day and been a saved man. When 
he was trembling under the sense of guilt, his trembling 
might have been changed to assurance if it had led him 
into penitence and he had gone from penitence to faith. 
But he said, " Go away for this time." He put off con- 
viction. He refused obedience to conscience. He post- 
poned salvation, and, so far as we know, the convenient 
day never came. The story of Felix's subsequent life, as 
far as it is given to us in history, is the story of continued 
vice, sensuality, moral enormity, and crime. He went 
down to his grave unsaved and unblessed. He came so 
near salvation that an abandonment of his sin and an 



218 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



acceptance of the Saviour would probably Have made him 
that very day a companion of Paul as a professed believer 
in Christ; but he said, "Go thy way. When I have a 
convenient season I will call for thee." 

No sinner ever finds a convenient season. That is my 
deep conviction . What is a convenient season ? A sea- 
son when it will be agreeable or easy to turn to God. In 
the nature of the case, it is never easy to abandon sin, 
never easy to turn from evil to good, never a convenient 
time to revolutionise life. If you want a convenient 
season, it is your most convenient season now. You 
never will find another that will be as convenient as this, 
for every day's postponement fixes the grasp of sin on 
your life. Every day's postponement accumulates the 
guilt of sin in your heart. Every day's postponement 
alienates the Spirit of God from your own soul. Every 
day's postponement is the treasuring up of wrath against 
the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment 
of God. And, therefore, when the message of salvation 
comes to a human soul, that is the time for choice. And, 
however Satan may seek to make you believe that another 
time is more convenient, his suggestion is a snare. The 
present time is the best time, because it is the nearest 
time to the appeal, and because it is the time when Satan 
has the least hold upon you ; and all waiting for future 
opportunities is, therefore, an imperilment of the final 
issue. 

Once, in a vast audience in an opera house in 
Detroit, I used what I have sometimes called a visible 
demonstration of the danger of postponement. I had a 
large audience, mostly of the unsaved, gathered before 
me, but perhaps one-third or one-half of the people were 
confessing disciples of Christ. I wanted to demonstrate 
that there was danger in delay, and first I asked all per- 
sons in the house who had been converted to Christ after 



THE PREACHER AND HIS MESSAGE 219 



the age of sixty years to rise. Two men and one woman 
rose. I then asked how many persons in the house had 
been converted after the age of fifty years ; and, according 
to my best recollection, there were perhaps twelve or 
thirteen in the whole house. Then 1 asked how many 
had been converted after the age of forty years. There 
were, perhaps, fifty or sixty or seventy. But when I 
came down to the last question, " How many in this house 
were brought to Christ after the age of fifteen, but inside 
of twenty-five ? " the great bulk of the Christian portion of 
that audience rose to their feet, showing me in a most 
tremendously convincing and startling form, and show- 
ing to the audience likewise, that every day's postpone- 
ment of salvation risked in a geometrical ratio the 
possibility of final rescue. 

There is nothing that makes me feel more solemn 
in thinking of these things, than the moral certainty 
that the great bulk of the unsaved turn a deaf 
ear to the Gospel, with the desire to continue in a 
life of sin. It requires a mighty outpouring of the Spirit 
of God in converting power to arrest the unsaved. They 
have been so long continuing in sin, and it has been so 
habitual to them to say, " Go thy way for this time," and 
they have been so long looking for a more convenient 
season, that the fact is that they are getting confirmed in 
evil, and the Spirit of God is likely to be banished from 
them entirely by their persistence in evil. There are 
young men who can remember when they uttered the 
first oath. Perhaps it startled and frightened them at the 
time, but now it may be that their conversation is 
habitually interlarded with profanity. There are those 
who shuddered at the first thought of a life of voluntary 
impurity, or the sacrifice of chastity, or virture, or truth, 
or honesty, and yet who, to-day, are going along in a 
career of increasing wickedness and departure from God. 



220 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



And it may be that some who have not these flagrant 
forms of sin have heard over and over again the gospel 
proclaimed as with celestial tenderness and winsomeness 
and have been saying all through these years, " Go thy 
way for this time," and perhaps they feel less concerned 
about their souls now than at any previous time when 
they heard a gospel message. I have no power to help 
you, save to urge upon you the acceptance of Christ ; but, 
affectionately and tenderly, and with my deepest soul, I 
proclaim to you your need of righteousness and temper- 
ance, and the certainty of your account at the judgment 
to come, and I pray you now do not postpone; do not 
procrastinate. Take Christ as your righteousness. Seek 
from the Spirit the renewal of your heart and the power 
of a gracious control over your lower nature, and by 
taking refuge in your precious Redeemer say, even to the 
great white throne, " I have no fear of Thee, for I shall 
never enter into judgment." 



XII 



The Isolated Name 

" Neither is there salvation in any other ; for there is none 
other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must 
be saved.*' — Jlcts iv. 1 2. 

HISTORY is the illustration of truth, and 
especially the history that is recorded in 
the Word of God. We cannot separate this 
verse from the story of healing which precedes 
it without losing God's own illustration of the 
truth in these words. The whole narrative, from 
the beginning of the third chapter to this point, 
throws light upon the grand expression of the text. 
Peter and John went up to the temple about the 
hour of prayer, the ninth hour, and at the Beautiful 
Gate of the temple there was a certain man which was 
daily laid there, that as the throngs moved to and fro 
he might receive from them their alms. And as Peter 
and John passed by he looked in a supplicating way to 
them that he might receive from them a gift of money. 
Peter, with his companion, John, fastening his eyes on 
him, said : " Look on us " — as much as to say, " Do we 
look as though we were able to bestow upon you worldly 
gifts. We ourselves are disciples of the hated Nazarene. 
Silver and gold have we none, but such as we have we 
give thee." Then came that blessed word of healing, 
"In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and 

m 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



walk." And they took him by the hand and lifted him 
up ; and as he stood on his feet God gave his feet and 
ankle bones strength ; and he walked and even leaped, 
and entered with them into the temple, walking and leap- 
ing and praising God. And the people to whom he was 
a very familiar sight, like any other chronic beggar, w r ere 
marvelling; and they gathered round Peter and John; 
and the crowd drew the rulers of the synagogue, and the 
question was raised, " By w^hat power, or by what name, 
has this been done ? " They could not dispute the 
miracle, for there stood the man healed ; but they diverted 
attention from the miracle by asking the question, "How 
has this been done ? " Then Peter explained that it was 
by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom they Had 
crucified and slain. "Even by that name does this man 
stand before you whole." 

If you will read the third and fourth chapters, you will 
find that there is scarcely a verse in which some reference 
is not made to this act of healing, and the verse which 
we have before us is the conclusion of this great discourse 
in which all eyes were turned from the healed man to the 
healing Saviour. 

Peter says : " This is the stone which was set at nought 
of you builders, but is become the head of the corner." 
There is a tradition that when the temple was building 
there was a stone brought from the quarry and laid on 
the temple platform, and marked for the corner-stone; 
and it is said that there was in the stone a red line which 
ran through it, and which, in the eyes of the builders, 
indicated a defect; and so they said, "This stone will 
not answer for the corner-stone," and they set it on one 
side. But when the master builder came, he said, "The 
stone which you have set at nought is God's chosen 
corner-stone." The tradition may be true, or may not 
be true, but it expresses a thought. They set at nought 



THE ISOLATED NAME 223 



the very corner-stone that God had ordained to be the 
foundation of His Church. And now, says Peter, 
"Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is, 
under the whole heaven, no other name given among 
men whereby it is necessary that we should be saved." 
The word "must" expresses the necessity. There is no 
salvation in any other, and if you are going to be saved 
at all, it is absolutely necessary that you should be saved 
by that name. 

Such is the natural introduction which the text has 
in the narrative, and I cannot conceal from myself — and 
I think that you will not be able to conceal from your- 
selves — the conviction that salvation here is intended to 
be illustrated by the blessing that came to this cripple. 
All along through this narrative we find references to 
this healing. For instance, in the 16th verse of the 3rd 
chapter we read, " And His name through faith in His 
name hath made this man strong whom ye see and know. 
Yea, the faith which is by Him hath given him this 
perfect soundness in the presence of you all." Then, in 
the 26th verse : " Unto you first, God, having raised up 
His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you in turning away 
every one of you from his iniquities." And then in the 
text and in the previous verses — for instance, the 9th 
verse of the 4th chapter — " If we this day be examined 
of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what 
means he is made whole, be it known unto you all, and 
to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised 
from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here 
before you. Neither is there salvation in any other. 
For there is none other name under heaven given among 
men whereby we must be saved." 

I believe that in preaching from a text we should be 
faithful to the line of thought of which that text \s a 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



conclusion ; and so I say that Peter here intends to Hold 
up Jesus Christ as the all-sufficient Saviour for sinners, 
and to illustrate this all-sufficiency by what he did for 
the impotent man. Consider, this was no ordinary case 
of disease. This man had never walked. Now, walking 
is an art. It has to be learnt — learnt with many a 
stumble— learnt with many a false step and mis-step. 
How did this man, not only overcome the impotence of 
his life, but immediately learn the art of walking? What 
a magnificent illustration of what Jesus Christ can do for 
a sinner. From his very birth he has been impotent to 
walk with God. He has not the capacity of holiness, 
and he does not understand the art of a holy walk. 
When Jesus Christ, by the power of His name, and by 
faith in His name, saves a sinner, He gives to that sinner 
power to do that which he was powerless to do before, 
not only so, but the moment before. Instantly there 
comes into a saved soul a power to please God, a power 
to live unto God, a power to overcome sin, a power to 
walk in the ways of righteousness, a power to vanquish 
the devil, which he never knew before; and the instan- 
taneousness of conversion, the immediateness with which 
we are even conscious that in our spiritual nature we 
have received the blessing for which we have been seek- 
ing from other sources all our lives long, and never have 
found — that remarkable experience that comes to hun- 
dreds and thousands of impotent sinners the moment 
they believe and trust in a crucified Lord — is an all- 
sufficient evidence that there is a power in Christ Jesus 
that is in no human physician, and that there is a merit 
in His blood that is in no works of our own. 

The word " holiness " — what does it mean ? Why, it 
means " whole-ness." It is but another form of the word 
"wholeness." To be holy is to be spiritually in health. 
To be holy is to be free from spiritual disease, To be 



THE ISOLATED NAME 



holy is to be free from every spiritual impotence. The 
Saviour that made that man whole in his body through 
faith in His name, so that immediately he recovered from 
a lifelong disease and learnt the art of walking without 
even the tuition that comes to children when they first 
begin to use their feet — the same great Saviour that did 
that for that man's body can do for your soul, says 
Peter, what that disease and its recovery suggest by way 
of illustration. 

You see the force of the word "salvation " here. Jesus 
Christ does two things for a believing soul. First, as 
Peter says in the 26th verse of the 3rd chapter, He turns 
you away from your iniquities; and, secondly, He 
enables you to stand before God and man whole. The 
first represents repentance, and the second represents 
regeneration. The first represents justification, and the 
second represents a full and complete salvation. A 
sinner must give up sin, and a sinner must have power 
to serve God. A sinner must renounce evil doing, and 
a sinner must be made capable of well doing. And Jesus 
Christ' at the same instant does both those things for a 
penitent believer. The man that has been bound hand 
and foot by sin has his shackles burst. The man that 
has been lying, as it were, in impotence even at the 
gate of God's temple, unable to enter into the temple, 
has great power given him, and he walks and leaps, and 
praises God, and enters with God's people into His 
presence. 

That is the story of healing, and that is the illustration 
of healing. 

Now, I want to emphasise this one thought — that Jesus 
Christ is the all-sufficient Saviour. I do not care how 
long your malady has existed. I do not care how many 
physicians you have consulted, getting no better but 
worse. I care not how far you are in extremity and 

8 



226 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



emergency. The Lord Jesus Christ, if you will touch 
the hem of His garment, will give you an immediate 
healing. If you will take hold of His outstretched hand 
and let Him lift you on your feet, you will find your feet 
and ankle bones get strength to walk in His service. 

Take another figure suggested by the immediately 
previous words. "The stone that was set at nought of 
you builders is made the head of the corner." I am well 
aware thai there is a great deal of difficulty attached to 
the various passages in the Word of God, in the Old 
and New Testaments, which refer to Christ as the corner- 
stone. Some of them seem to think of Him as the base- 
stone of the edifice — that which lies beneath the whole 
structure; and others seem to refer to Him as not the 
corner-stone only, but the copestone ; or, as we call it, 
the capstone in the building, when the whole building 
reaches completeness. This is one of the passages which 
seem to indicate that, the stone is both the corner-stone 
and the copestone. If you have ever noticed the peculiar 
form or structure of a pyramid, you will note that the 
copestone that caps the whole building is itself a little 
pyramid of precisely the same shape as the whole 
pyramid is, so that you may take that single stone that 
crowns the pyramid, and you may find in that the whole 
pattern of the pyramid. 

It seems to me that the Word of God some- 
times refers to this great structure of character in 
Christ, and even in the Church of God, as a great 
pyramid. Down beneath it, as a foundation, lie Jesus 
Christ and the apostles, Christ Himself being the chief 
corner-stone. And then on the top of the pyramid, as 
the last stone laid, itself the very pattern of the pyramid, 
Jesus Christ is lifted. There is only one stone that can 
cap the climax of the pyramid. There is only one stone 
that leaves no other stone to go beyond it or above it. 



THE ISOLATED NAME 227 



There is only one stone which marks absolute complete- 
ness to which nothing can be added, and that is the 
copestone of the pyramid. And now the Lord Jesus 
Christ, who is represented in this narrative as able to 
give to sinners wholeness, holiness — who can turn them 
away from their iniquities, and then give them in their 
impotence ability and capacity to serve and please God, 
is represented as building up the soul by lying beneath 
it as the foundation of its hope, and by crowning it as 
the consummation of its hope. 

Nothing can be said any more to show the all- 
sufficiency of Christ. Are you a sin-sick soul? 
He can heal you. Are you a sinner? He can 
forgive you. Are you bound in the chains of sinful 
habit? He can release you. Are you impotent to 
walk with God? He can give you strength and power. 
Do you not understand the art and science of heavenly 
walking? He can teach you in one instant more than 
philosophers can teach you in a thousand years. Do 
you want to build up a symmetrical and beautiful charac- 
ter that is like unto God? Take Him as the foundation 
on which you rest, and grow unto Him in all things who 
is the head-stone, the copestone, the climax of all holy 
living. That is the thought, and a marvellous thought 
it is. 

Now the Apostle Peter says that in no other is there 
salvation. I think that you can find the whole substance 
of this beautiful text in two little phrases. I like to give 
people a convenient form in which to remember the les- 
sons of Holy Scripture. If you will write over against 
this text, first, "In Him alone," you will have the first 
lesson. If you write over against it next, "In Him 
only," you have the second lesson. "In Him alone," 
because He alone can save you. I mean He can save 
you without anybody's help. That is the force of the 



228 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



word "alone." Take Jesus Christ alone. You need 
have no assistance from any source, for all-sufficiency is 
in Him. And, in Jesus only, for there is no one else that 

can save you but Jesus. 

Now Peter says, " This is the only name under heaven 
given among men." I suppose that indicates that Jesus 
Christ is the gift of God. He is the only One that 
has come down from above the heavens to this world 
beneath the heavens. Heaven was emptied of its glory 
that earth might be filled with saving power. Heaven 
gave up the brightest of its ornaments that that ornament 
might be put as the crown on a believing soul. Heaven 
gave up the richest of its treasures that a poor and believ- 
ing sinner might be made infinitely rich. Heaven gave 
up its great physician that every sin-sick soul might get 
healing. And so here is the divine gift of God, and 
when God gives anything it is absolutely a perfect gift. 
The adaptation of Jesus Christ to the sinner is as perfec" 
as the wisdom of God can make that adaptation. And 
the history of all these thousands of years has shown 
that there is absolute fitness between the Saviour and the 
sinner; that His medicine always reaches the case; tha 
His counsel always covers the disease; that His remedy 
is always adequate to the cure. And while you may 
stand aside and say that you do not see any virtue in 
this great Saviour — that you do not believe in the power 
of the balm of Gilead to overcome your wounds and heal 
them, there is never a sinner in all the ages of the world 
who has made a trial of the hem of His garment and 
who has not found the virtue going out, and felt con- 
scious that he was healed of his plague. 

Now let me sum up all I have to say in one word more. 
Jesus only, as well as Jesus alone. You remember that 
there were, centuries ago, about the time of the Lutheran 
Reformation, as it is called, two very prominent characters 



THE ISOLATED NAME 229 



that appeared in history on the continent of Europe. I 
think that history has never presented a pair of men that 
suggested greater likenesses and greater contrasts. One 
was Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, and the other was 
Luther, the leader of the great Reformation. They were 
both of them Roman Catholics. Both of them became 
greatly dissatisfied with their own condition. Both of 
them were convicted of sin, and both of them felt the 
necessity of something more than they had ever found 
in the rites and ceremonies of their religion, and in 
priestly confessional and absolution, to lead them into 
harmonious relations with God. But from this point up 
to which they had been brought by the Spirit of God and 
their own conscience, and where they stood, as it were, 
together in their experiences, they parted as men who 
come to a fork of the road, of whom one goes one way 
and the other goes another. Loyola determined that 
what he needed was favour with God, and he said, " I 
will get favour with God by purity. I will purge my 
body. I will subject it to fasting, and penance, and 
privation. I will do this and do that, beyond the 
measure of the absolute law of God and the demands of 
the Church, and through my purity I will get God's 
favour." Luther said, " I am in need of God's favour in 
order that I may get purity. I will seek the grace of God 
to be a pure man." And so he learnt that lesson from 
Habakkuk and Galatians, and Romans and Hebrews, 
that "the just shall live by his faith," that faith justifies 
the sinner and brings him into relations with a justifying 
God. And so while Loyola went forward in his line, 
seeking God's favour by trying to be in his own strength 
a pure man, Luther sought the favour of God in Christ 
that he might by that grace become a pure man. 

There the two systems which those men represent 
divide, and they have gone down in opposite directions 



230 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



through the paths of these centuries. In the great world of 
to-day there are just two kinds of people, one kind trying 
to get God's favour by their own personal improvement, 
and the other trying to obtain personal improvement by 
the bestowment of the grace of God. Now the gospel 
message is surely this — you can never get to be a better 
man without the grace of God, and that you can never 
buy God's favour by your good works; that what you 
need is to give up all attempts to walk in your own 
strength and get hold of Christ's hand till He lifts you 
up, and sets you on your feet, and teaches you the holy 
art of walking. Men want to give up their fooling with 
themselves and their trifling with their disease, and their 
running to the world's physicians, and their spending 
all their money in the attempts to get better. And they 
want to just get hold of the hem of Christ's garment, 
and get the virtue out of Christ. Then they will be 
whole. They need to build on Him and build up to 
Him. They need to find in Him a corner-stone and 
copestone. They need to begin with Him and end with 
Him, and all through the building process look back to 
the foundation and forward to the consummation in Him. 

So, in conclusion, I can say very little more than this. 
I thank God that there is the little word "only " as well 
as the little word "alone," so that while I find Jesus 
Christ in Himself having all-sufficiency, the Word of 
God shuts me up to Him, so that I need not spend my 
time in looking anywhere else, since there is no salvation in 
any other, and it is necessary to be saved by trusting in Him. 

When that great man, Sir Joshua Reynolds, delivered, 
many years ago, in the city of London, a series of ad- 
dresses or lectures on art, he took four statues that I saw 
in Florence in 1889, known as night, morning, noon, 
midnight, the four seasons of the day — the middle of the 
night, the middle of the day, the dawning of the morning 



THE ISOLATED NAME 231 



and the sunset of the evening. Marvellous statues they 
are. He took those four statues for a whole course of 
lectures in London, and when he was through he closed 
in this manner. He said, "And now, gentlemen, I have 
lectured to you during this entire season, and I beg now, 
in the close of this lecture, to bring before you one name 
only, the name of Michael Angelo." If I should preach 
for 50 years in any pulpit, I might conclude the last of 
my sermons by saying, "Now I have but one name to 
present to you, the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth." 
How many of you believe that there is no other name 
given under heaven among men whereby we must be 
saved? I am awfully afraid for many of you that you 
are trying other methods of salvation, and trusting to 
devices of your own, and that you will never come to the 
sense that there is no salvation in any other until you 
strike on the awful rock of the souPs perdition. 

No doubt there are many of you that have been to New 
South Wales, and been in that harbour of Port Jackson, 
which is the finest harbour in the world. You know that 
there is only one narrow entrance into that harbour. It 
is known as the Heads, where the tall cliffs that line the 
coast strangely open up, and afford a narrow passage for 
vessels into this capacious and calm haven. So obscure 
is the entrance to this haven that Captain Cook, in his 
voyages round the world, passed it and did not see it. 

Years ago there was an English captain in charge 
of the clipper ship, "Duncan Dunbar," and it is said 
that he made a wager that he would enter the harbour 
of Port Jackson before midnight of a certain day, and 
a large amount of money hung upon his fulfilment of 
his pledge. The last day was at hand, and the vessel 
was approaching New South Wales. A mist overhung 
the sea and hid the cliff on the shore; but as he drew 
nearer to the shore he beheld through his powerful glass 



232 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



an opening in the cliffs, known as the "Dip," because 
just there these cliffs descend almost to the sea 
level ; and he said to himself, " That is the entrance to 
the harbour," and he crowded on all sails that the wind 
filling the sails might plunge the vessel into the haven 
through the opening in these rocks. As they moved 
that way a sailor on the outlook cried out, "Breakers 
ahead! Breakers ahead." And before the vessel could 
be reversed she had plunged on the rock. In an hour 
she was a wreck, one solitary sailor escaping to the shore 
by what is now known as "Jacob's Ladder," that awk- 
ward, red stairway in the cliff. Wnen the morning 
dawned there was nothing but the wreck of boats floating 
on the surge. And the news flashed to Sydney that this 
vessel with 600 souls had gone down. 

I solemnly say to men and women out of 
Christ, that there is no other entrance into heaven's 
harbour but by Jesus Christ. The devil has his 
"dips J ' at points in the shore, but there is only 
one " head " through which you enter into the 
haven. If you try to get in any other way you enter into 
a controversy with the Holy Ghost, and destruction 
awaits every soul that ventures in any other way, by any 
other entrance, to get into heaven. "No man cometh 
unto the Father but by Me," and when you have struck 
those rocks it will be too late for you to take another 
course. Hear what Christ says to you to-day. "In Me 
alone is sufficient salvation. In Me only is any salva- 
tion." And I urge you, turn from all other refuge and 
find in the all-sufficiency of Christ, conversion from your 
sin, capacity for service of God, foundation for your 
building, copestone for your building, light and love, 
and life and salvation, the entrance to the harbour, 

Where the wicked cease from troubling, 
And the weary are at rest. 



XIII 



Christ's Secret of Rest 

" Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of 
Me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall find rest 
unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." 
—Matthew xi. 28 to 30. 

IT seems a strange thing that our blessed Lord Jesus 
Christ should invite a weary and heavy-laden man 
to get rest by taking upon him a yoke. A yoke is 
the symbol of burdens borne. We associate it with 
the oxen in the field, which, taking the yoke upon them- 
selves, draw the plough or heavy load behind them. 
Yet our blessed Lord, lifting up His eyes and looking 
on the multitudes who gave evidence even in their faces 
that they were weary and heavy laden, says : " Come unto 
Me and I will give you rest. Take upon you My yoke." 
Yet that paradox and apparent contradiction leads the 
way into some of the most delightful and beautiful truths 
of Holy Scripture. Now, I would make a threefold 
enquiry : First, whom does God invite ? Second, what 
does He enjoin ? Third, what does He promise ? 

I. 

Whom does God invite? The weary and the heavy 
laden. Now, let us not think that, because these two 
words are similar they mean the same thing. Weariness 

233 



234 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



is not the same thing as fatigue. Fatigue implies exer- 
tion. Weariness may come upon us without any 
exertion. Idleness can make us weary, but it can never 
make us fatigued. We may weary of our pleasures 
because they lose their power to charm us, and get 
monotonous and unsatisfying. We may weary of ou 
treasures when we have heaped them up so that we have 
a million of pounds sterling at our disposal. Xerxes 
went through the entire run of pleasure, and spent his 
royal resources on every form of delight known to the 
sons of men, and then he advertised that he would give 
a handsome reward to anybody who woulcl invent him a 
new pleasure that he had not yet found. He was weary 
of all his indulgences, and he offered a reward for some 
new pleasure, just like Solomon the king, who undertoo 
to find something in this w T orld that satisfied him, an 
by and by pronounced them all vanity and vexation o 
spirit, and said that there was no profit under the sun, 
simply because he had found that his own soul was to 
big for this world, and that when a man has the whol 
world it is still but a trifle ; for his soul, which was mean 
to receive God, is quite too big for this world to fill. 

Now, when our Lord said, " Come unto Me all ye tha 
are weary and are heavy laden," He included every so 
of unsatisfied soul — the soul that is unsatisfied with plea 
sure and treasure, with self-indulgence and self-gratifica 
tion, with idleness and with ease, and the soul that i 
fatigued by bearing heavy burdens, bearing them to 
long without even resting a time. I am sure that al 
who have not known Jesus Christ as a Saviour will com 
under one of those two classes. They are either amon 
the weary ones, or among the heavy laden ones, and s 
Jesus speaks to every one of you, and says, "Come unt 
Me ; come unto Me," 



CHRIST'S SECRET OF REST 235 



II. 

Now look at what He enjoins. There are three things : 
" Come unto Me ; take My yoke upon you ; learn of Me." 

"Come unto Me." That is personal approach to the 
Saviour. "Take My yoke." That is the assuming of 
work for Him. "Learn of Me." That is sitting at His 
feet that He may teach us by His words and by His 
example what manner of persons we ought to be. Now, 
if we briefly look at these three things, we shall come 
to understand this wonderful text. 

"Come unto Me." He represents a finished work. 
When He died on the cross He completed our atonement. 
When He rose from the grave He completed our justifi- 
cation ; and all through His life, from beginning to end, 
He was completing the perfection of obedience for our 
sins. Now, when He says, "Come unto Me," He means 
this, that you shall find in Him the pole in which your 
magnetic needle has its rest, its true attraction. He 
means that you shall cease from your own works to find 
in His finished work a satisfaction to the law of God, the 
expiation of the penalty, and the hope and assurance of 
everlasting life. 

And, mark, you can only find that in a personal 
Saviour. Observe you cannot find it even in the Word 
of God without the Christ of God ; you cannot find it in 
the Church of God without the Christ of God ; you can- 
not find it in the creed of the Church of God without the 
Christ of God. If you leave Christ out of the Bible, you 
have left out the main thing for which the Bible was 
written. If you leave Christ out of the Church, trie 
Church becomes a mere shell without a kernel, a mere 
outside without any vitalising life within it. And if you 
leave Christ out of the creeds they become cold forms of 
doctrine with the very centre of doctrine wanting. 



236 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



The Church of God was meant as a telescope through 
which men shall look at the eternal things, and, above 
all, at the Sun of Righteousness. The Church of God 
was meant as a telescope to bring a distant Christ near 
to the human soul and give a clear view of Jesus Christ ; 
and when men turn to the Church and forget the Christ, 
they are like men who are examining the outside of the 
telescope instead of putting their eye to the eye-piece and 
looking through it at the stars. "Come unto Me; take 
My finished work; appropriate My complete righteous- 
ness; appropriate My sufferings for your sin and My 
justifying power for your salvation ; and let your heart 
no longer move restlessly from side to side, seeking for 
something that meets the claims of a broken law and 
relieves you of the danger and the punishment of sin. 

"Take My yoke upon you." What does that mean? 
A yoke is for two. A yoke unites cattle in bearing one 
burden or drawing one load. " Take My yoke upon you. 
Associate yourself with Me in work for God. Stand side 
by side with Me in bearing divine burdens and drawing 
loads for the sake of lost humanity. Learn of Me,- for 
I am meek and lowly in heart. Get your inspiration for 
your life from Me, from My teaching and My example ; 
and imitate Me." That is the substance of what our 
Lord savs. 

III. 

Now, I would turn to another thought which lies be- 
neath all this, and so I only suggest this thought that 
we may pass over it to a greater thought. The substance 
of this whole exhortation of Christ is this : " Cessation 
from your own works." The word in the Greek which is 
translated " rest " is the very word from which comes the 
word, "pause." To pause is to stop where you are, 
arrest your steps, and consider. Jesus Christ s&ys, 



CHRIST'S SECRET OF REST 237 



"Come unto Me, and I will give you rest. Come unto 
Me, and you shall rest yourselves," and the main idea 
is the idea of this pausing — this cessation from your own 
works. 

Remember that we are told in the 2nd chapter of 
Genesis and the 3rd verse, that when God had finished 
His creative work of preparing this world for the habita- 
tion of men, " God did rest from all His works which God 
created and made." That was the beginning of what is 
known in the Bible as the Sabbath rest. That conse- 
crated the Sabbath, while as yet there was no sin which 
had left its awful mark upon Eden and upon the nature 
of man. And remember now that this Sabbath resting 
goes before sin. It is the one thing that remains to us 
from the blessedness of Eden. Now, we are told in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews that he that hath entered into 
God's rest also hath ceased from his own work as God 
did from His. The secret of entering into the true Sab- 
bath rest of God is this — that you cease from your own 
works, as God did from His. You have been doing 
something for yourself ; you stop doing something for 
yourself that you may take up the unfinished work of 
God in which He permits you to take part, namely, the 
working out of the great salvation of a lost world. 
Cessation from your own works is the single secret of 
entering into the rest of God. 

Let me give you another passage of Scripture which 
greatly helps in the understanding of this Sabbatic rest. 
In the 58th chapter of Isaiah, at the close of the chapter, 
we read these words : " If thou turn away thy foot from 
the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day, 
and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, 
honourable, and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own 
ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine 
own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, 



238 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the 
earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father, 
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Now, you 
notice that this Sabbatic law lies midway between Moses 
and Christ. It is a kind of half-way house between the 
Old Testament Sabbath and the New Testament Sab- 
bath. You observe that all the features that were purely 
ceremonial have been refined away. All the little direc- 
tions and rules that cumbered the Sabbath keeping of 
the Jews have disappeared ; and there is a kind of antici- 
pation here of what the Sabbath is to be, or was to be 
when Isaiah wrote these words, when Jesus Christ should 
fulfil the Levitical law, and the ceremonial features of it 
should pass away, and only that which cannot be shaken, 
which is intended to be permanent, might remain. But 
now do you not see that in this passage in Isaiah the 
one thought is the ceasing from your own works ? See 
how emphatic the prophet makes this idea : " If thou turn 
away thy foot from My Sabbath " — if you do not profane 
My Sabbath by walking heedlessly, carelessly, within 
the paling that separates one day from the other six — " if 
thou turn away thy foot from My Sabbath from doing 
thy pleasure on My holy day, and shalt honour the Lord, 
not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own 
pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou 
delight thyself in the Lord." What is that but ceasing 
from your own works ? You stop doing your own ways ; 
you stop seeking your own pleasure; you stop even 
speaking your own words; and you try to follow the 
ways of God and to find pleasure in His worship, and to 
take up His work and to have your mouth the means of 
uttering the words that God shall teach. 

Now, do you not see that the whole thought 
of Isaiah is ceasing from your own works? What 
does that mean ? It is a most precious thought. 



CHRIST'S SECRET OF REST 239 



The essence of sin is that sin centres in self instead 
of God. It tries to find satisfaction in the centre 
that is within us rather than in the centre that is 
without us. We trust ourselves instead of trusting His 
finished work. We try to help ourselves instead of 
throwing our burden of sin and care and sorrow upon 
the great Sin-bearer and the Man of Sorrows, who was 
acquainted with grief. Now, when we come to Christ, we 
abandon all this self-help, and ask Him to be our helper ; 
we abandon all this self-trust and lean on His finished 
work ; we abandon all this self-will, and give up our will 
unto Him, our Master and our Lord. We take His will 
to be our will, and henceforth the prayer of our hearts 
is, "Thy will, not my will, be done." We abandon our 
self-seeking and our self-glorifying. W e stop labouring 
to build up our own interests, and we are taken up with 
the interests of His kingdom. We stop seeking glory 
to ourselves, and we undertake to glorify Him. We 
stop seeking advantage for ourselves, and think of the 
profit of many souls that may be led to Jesus Christ and 
built up in their holy faith through our instrumentality. 
And I pray you to regard this word of the living God. 
You shall never find rest until you find rest in ceasing 
from your own works, as God did from His, and entering 
into Sabbatism, the Sabbath of rest that remains for the 
people of God, in this way. 

Now, this thought I desire to illustrate that I may 
enforce it. 

Our blessed Lord, in order to make this more perfectly 
obvious to us, says, " Learn of Me " ; and observe why 
He tells us to learn of Him. He says, " I am meek and 
lowly of heart." What do these two words mean ? Trie 
word " meek " carries the idea of mildness and gentleness 
and the absence of self-vindication, and retaliation of 
injury, and so it carries with it the conception of 



2 4 o ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



unselfishness ; and that is the general meaning of the word 
"meek" throughout the Holy Scriptures. The meek 
" inherit the earth " by and by, because they have never 
sought anything for themselves ; and God always gives 
the most to those who seek nothing for themselves. 
Moses was meek, not because he was not a man that was 
easily angered or violently angry at times, but because 
he was an unselfish man, and was willing to be dropped 
out of the book of life himself that he might save his 
people from their sins. And so Jesus says, " I am lowly 
in heart." What is it to be lowly in heart? Why, the 
proud man is high-minded. The humble man is lowly- 
minded. The selfish man is on an exalted height, where 
he looks at personal advantage, and interest, and profit. 
The lowly-minded man is down in a humble sphere, 
where he is content if he can only serve. Now, our 
blessed Lord teaches us again, "Cease from your own 
works. Stop vindicating yourself. Stop retaliating in- 
juries. Stop looking after your own personal interests, 
and leave yourselves in the hands of God. Be unselfish. 
Stop your self-seeking, your self-glorifying, your self- 
boasting, and get down into a lowly place where you will 
be ready to serve God and serve humanity out of sight 
of men, if you may only be, however little in the sight 
of God, the means of good to other souls. Do you not 
see that the one idea is that you cease from your own 
works — that you stop helping yourself, working for your- 
self, willing for yourself, and aiming after your own 
advantage, and just come where you forget yourself and 
lose yourself in your Master and Lord? 

Now, have you never noticed that the holiest men and 
the most useful women have been the men and the 
women who have thus lost sight of themselves? Did 
you ever read the story of David Livingstone going from 
Scotland into South Africa, penetrating into the interior 



CHRIST'S SECRET OF REST 



of Equatoria, forty times burnt in the furnace of African 
fever, for eighteen months or two years away from family 
and home, and even without a letter from Europe, losing 
his medicine-chest, wandering among the savage tribes 
of the interior — one man alone, and the only white man 
in all those parts ; and yet hear him solemnly say, " I 
never made a sacrifice for my Lord." He had had such 
abundant compensation that he forgot that he had lost 
himself in Jesus — that he had ceased from his own works 
to do God's work, and he felt as though he never had 
made a sacrifice, so grandly and wonderfully had he been 
compensated. And that hero whom we all delight to 
honour, who perished down in the Soudan, Charles 
George Gordon — w 7 hat a marvellously self-forgetful man 
he was ! He put the rules of his life before him as fol- 
lows : First, always to do the will of God ; second, always 
to avoid all pretension ; third, always to be self-forgetful ; 
and fourth, never to follow, as a motive, the praise or 
the disapproval of the world; and that grand and heroic 
man followed out those four rules of conduct perhaps 
with as much singleness of aim and as much absolute 
devotion as any man since the days of the Apostle Paul. 
It is marvellous how he learnt even to hate to be talked 
about. He disliked decorations; he could not bear 
lionizing. He disliked even public gatherings that were 
held in his honour, however sincerely on the part of his 
friends. He would not accept money. He flung it from 
him as though it were a bribe. On one occasion, after 
he had suppressed the Taiping rebellion, the Regent, a 
Royal Prince, came to Sir Frederick Bruce, the British 
ambassador, and said to him, "We do not know what to 
do with this man. He will not receive money. We 
have given him all the rewards that we are able to offer 
him, and put upon him all the honours that we can pos- 
sibly proffer, and he values them not at all. Now, will 

R 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



not you ask your Queen Victoria if, on his return home, 
she will not give him something that possibly he would 
value ? " It was just as much out of the power of that 
gracious Queen to give him anything that he would 
value as it was out of the power of the Emperor of China, 
simply because, like Joan of Arc, and others who 
belonged to that exalted society, he had not merely 
renounced these things, but he was in an atmosphere 
where he did not care for them even enough to renounce 
them. And it is most remarkable that when the story 
of the Taiping rebellion was written, in which, as we 
know, he was the great hero, and he was permitted to 
look over the manuscript before it was printed, he saw 
several pages which applauded him and praised him as 
the hero of that great war, he simply tore those pages out 
of the manuscript and threw them into the fire, and, as 
the author said, spoiled his book. There was one thing 
that he did seem to value, and that was the gold 
medal given by the Emperor of China, and which had 
upon it a grateful and honourable superscription. Some- 
how or other that medal disappeared, and afterwards it 
was found that he had first erased the inscription, and 
then, in the time of the famine in Manchester, sent tnat 
gold medal to Canon Miller, that the proceeds of its sale 
might be applied to the relief of the frungry and starving 
poor. Oh, what rest does a man find who ceases from 
his own works, who has stopped glorifying himself, 
whom the ambitions of this world can no longer win, 
over whom the appetites of the flesh have no longer 
domination, and in whom avarice has long since lost its 
power to grapple with his soul. 

Now, do you think that this is all a high and ideal 
philosophy? Not at all. I want to ask you whethei 
you do not find unrest in the very things in which yoi 
are seeking rest? Take avarice, Will you tell me any- 



CHRIST'S SECRET OF REST 243 



thing that makes a man more restlessly unhappy than 
becoming the victim of the greed of gain ? He gets a 
little property, but he wants more. He gets a little more. 
He wants still more. Avarice, like the horse-leech's 
daughters, cries, " Give, give, give, give " — never satis- 
fied. It never has enough. Like the grave, it is alwavs 
open for some new victim. The heart of the greedy 
man is always reaching out after some new accumulation 
of treasure, and you can never give him so much as that 
he is satisfied. 

How is it with the ambitious man? A little higher. 
When he gets there, that is only the stepping-stone to 
higher elevations. A little higher. When he gets there, 
still a little higher ; and if, like Alexander, he could stand 
with his foot on the topmost pinnacle, and look on a 
world that was conquered and laid at his feet, he would 
still sigh for anothef world to conquer, or for other 
worlds to conquer, as the historian makes Alexander to 
sigh at the height of his conquest. 

Did you ever find any satisfaction in your appetite? 
Does it not clamour after new indulgence all the time? 
Do you not find that the more you suffer yourself to 
become a glutton the more gluttony ensnares ? Do you 
not find that the more you indulge in intoxicating drink 
the more loudly intoxicating drink appeals for the satis- 
faction and gratification which never can come to that 
morbid appetite ? Have you never noticed the fact that 
men that give themselves up to the gratification of their 
lusts and passions in a life of impurity, after they have 
burned out their own lusts by their indulgence, have 
still such an unsatisfied craving that they become the 
pamperers and the procurers for the passions of others 
after their own passions have ceased to burn ? The 
whole history of the world shows us that never man nor 
woman finds rest in the sources of rest to which most of 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



us turn, and all of us turn in a life of sin, and that the 
men and women who have found the sublimest Sabbath 
rest on earth have been the men and women that have 
ceased from their own works, and ceased from their own 
will, and ceased from their own pleasure, and ceased 
from their own glory, and rested in the finished work of 
Christ and taken up the unfinished work of God in a 
world's redemption, and have, in the help of Christ, 
found their strength, and in the glory of God found 
their object, and in the intensest and most self-sacrificing 
devotion to God found the intensest and most abundant 
satisfaction to their own souls ? I often read that hymn 
of Faber, which is so well-beloved among the people of 
God. You remember how he sings: 

I worship Thee, sweet Will of God, 

And all Thy ways adore, 
And every day I live I seem 

To love Thee more and more. 

I love to kiss each print where Christ 

Did set His pilgrim feet ; 
Nor can I fear that blessed path, 

Whose traces are so sweet. 

When obstacles and trials seem 

Like prison walls to be, 
I do the little I can do, 

And leave the rest to Thee. 

I have no cares, O blessed Lord, 

For all my cares are Thine ; 
I live in triumph, too, for Thou 

Hast made Thy triumphs mine. 

Ill that He blesses is our good, 

And unblessed good is ill ; 
And all is right that seems most wrong, 

If it be His sweet Will, 



CHRIST'S SECRET OF REST 245 



He only wins who sides with God, 

To whom no chance is lost ; 
His Will is sweetest to him when 

It triumphs at his cost. 

Lead on ! lead on triumphantly, 

O blessed Lord, lead on ; 
Faith's pilgrim-sons behind Thee seek 

The road that Thou hast gone. 

It took a high Christian experience to write such a hymn 
as that. That man had to know what it was to lose him- 
self in God, who could say : 

Thy Will is sweetest to me when 
It triumphs at my cost — 

when I learn to love God so, and to trust God's will, so 
that even when it crosses my will, and when it defeats 
my inclinations, I can rejoice in the failure more than I 
can rejoice in the success of my own plans. I want to 
tell you a brief story about a hymn which, although not 
so well known, is one of the highest triumphs of a Chris- 
tian soul. You remember that it is the hymn — 

My Jesus, as Thou wilt : 
Oh, let Thy Will be mine. 

Now, you never can appreciate that hymn unless you 
know the story of it. Schmolke, the writer, was a Ger- 
man pastor. If I remember rightly the circumstances, 
there was first a great conflagration, which swept over 
his entire parish and burned the houses of most of his 
people, and burned his own church, if not his own par- 
sonage. Then death came into his family and took away 
his wife and his daughter. Then paralysis struck him 
and laid him on his bed, so that he could not move ; and 
blindness crept over his eyes, and there, his parish 
being burned down, his wife and daughter taken from 
him, himself blind and paralysed, he wrote these words : 



246 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

My Jesus, as Thou wilt, 

Oh, let Thy Will be mine, 
Into Thy hand of love 

My all I now resign. 
Through sorrow or through joy, 

Conduct me as Thine own, 
And help my soul to say, my Lord, 

Thy Will be done. 

My Jesus, as Thou wilt, 

Though seen through many a tear, 
Let not my star of hope 

Grow dim, or disappear 
Since Thou so oft hast wept 

And sorrowed all alone, 
If I must weep with Thee, my Lord, 

Thy Will be done. 

My Jesus, as Thou wilt, 

All shall be well with me ; 
Each changing future scene 

I gladly trust to Thee. 
Straight to my home above 

I travel calmly on, 
And say in life and death, my Lord, 

Thy Will be done. 

Think of that man, when he could not see a star in 
the heaven, praying that his star of hope might not grow 
dim or disappear ; when he could not move hand or foot, 
praying that he might be conducted as God's own 
through each changing future scene, and affirming that 
he would travel straight on toward the throne of God. 

I cannot convince you that there is no rest but in 
Christ, but you may look all over human history, and 
you will find that only as men and women have forgotten 
themselves in Him, and lost their will in His will, and 
ceased from their own pleasure for the pleasure of God, 
and stopped their own works that they might do the 



CHRIST'S SECRET OF REST 24? 



works of God, have they ever found joy, peace, rest and 
satisfaction. 

But now I want to notice briefly, in conclusion, that if 
you cease from your own works you may do God's 
works, and that is the significance of "Take My yoke 
upon you." The Lord would not have you cease from 
your works to do nothing. But you are to associate 
with Him in blessed labour and in suffering. You re- 
member that the taking of the yoke implies the adoption 
of Christ as a Master. Oh, that the Church of God 
could learn, and oh that impenitent wills could learn, the 
blessedness of the Mastership of Christ, just to have 
Christ absolute Master, to have Him ruling my thoughts 
and ruling my life, and ruling my choices, guiding the 
work of my hands and guiding the walking of my feet, 
and taking care of every interest of my soul. Mr. Archi- 
bald Brown was once telling the story of Nellie, his 
daughter, that when she was asked how it was she came 
to go to China, she said before that great audience in 
the East London Tabernacle : " I thought that I knew 
something about Jesus as my Saviour; and I thought 
that I knew something about Jesus as my Friend ; and I 
thought that I knew something about Jesus as my 
helper. But I was asked, ' Nellie, have you ever known 
Jesus as your Master ? ' and I said, ' I am afraid not ' ; 
and I went down on my face before Jesus, and I said, 
' O Jesus, O Jesus, be my Master ' ; and Jesus said to me, 
4 Well, Nellie, if I am to be your Master, go to China.* 
So I am going to China." 

But if it is Mastership, it is also fellowship. The 
yoke is for two, and you can well afford to take Christ's 
yoke upon you, because He bears the heaviest end of it. 
In fact, when you stand with Him beneath the yoke, you 
feel no burden at all. He bears it all. I remember that 
when I was a boy I used to go out into the country in 



248 Arthur t. pIerson, d.D. 



the rural districts of New Jersey in the summer season. 
I have often seen my uncle there when he was yoking up 
the oxen. The oxen might be separated far in the pas- 
ture field, but he would take the heavy yoke over his 
shoulder, and then go where the near ox was standing, 
and he would put the yoke on the neck of the near ox, 
and then he would stand off and hold up the other end 
of the yoke. Would the other ox think that he would 
keep clear of his end of the yoke? Would he not run 
along as if he was very glad to be associated with his 
fellow, and put his neck down until the yoke was fastened 
about his neck? Jesus puts the yoke upon His neck, 
and then holds up the other end of the yoke, and says, 
" Take My yoke upon you " ; and what a sweet thing it 
is just to come and bow your head before the Mastership 
of Christ, and accept the fellowship of Christ in the work 
which He does for God and for souls. 

Did you ever read the story of Ignatius, one of the 
martyrs of Christ? I remember to have stood in the 
midst of the Coliseum of Rome many years ago, and I 
thought of that martyr, as he came out there to be torn 
in pieces, folding his arms as the fierce Numidian lion 
advanced from his den, and he was heard to say these 
words : " I am grain of God. I must be ground between 
the teeth of lions to make bread for God's people, and in 
hope that to be crushed between the jaws of a fierce wild 
beast might be the means of feeding God's people with 
the martyr spirit, and leading even enemies of God to 
see that there is a power in the religion of the Nazarene." 
Ignatius welcomed death in the arena of Rome. There 
are many of you that are weary and heavy laden. You 
have been seeking yourselves, and your own glory, and 
your own advantage. There are some of you that are 
weary with the seeking of treasure and the enjoyment of 
pleasures. I pray you come unto Jesus. Come now* 



CHRIST'S SECRET OF REST 249 



Take His yoke upon you. It is very easy, and His 
burden is very light. Take Him as your Master; take 
Him as your fellow in work; and learn to be meek and 
to be lowly in heart. He will rest you, and you will rest 
yourself when you come to Him. 



XIV 



The Inevitable Alternative 

" And these shall go into everlasting punishment, but the 
righteous unto life eternal." — Matthew xxv. 46. 

THIS is, without exception, the most unpopular 
text in the Bible. There is no one text upon 
which ministers of Christ so infrequently; 
preach, and from which the bulk of hearers so constantly 
shrink as from this verse. Yet we are bidden to declare 
the whole counsel of God, whether men will hear or 
whether they will forbear. And, if for no other reason 
than this, that the declaration of the entire message of 
God is the essential condition of freeing our own gar- 
ments from the blood of lost souls, there is no minister 
of Christ that ought to preach without at times calling 
attention to a subject like this. 

Now, will you do me the justice to believe that it is 
with the greatest reluctance that I select this subject, 
acknowledging that there is connected with it a very 
awful and profound mystery, but believing also that it 
constitutes a part of the message, and therefore is essen- 
tial to a faithful declaration of the message. 

Now, in the first place, let me say that every effort 
has been made to get rid of the disagreeable and the 
offensive features of this message. We may say that 
this one verse in the Gospel according to Matthew has 

250 



THE INEVITABLE ALTERNATIVE 251 



been assailed by more people in the Church and out of 
the Church, and that it has been the subject of more 
dispute and determined effort to wrench it out of its 
obvious meaning, than any other one verse in Scripture, 
and yet it absolutely refuses to be put away from the 
Scriptures or explained out of them. It stands there for 
ever. It is in all the great manuscripts. There is no 
variation in the reading in different manuscripts. There 
is no question about the original force of the words that 
are here employed, and the simple fact is that it is there, 
and you cannot get rid of it. You may try with your 
watering-pots to put out the stars, but they will shine 
on just the same. And all the efforts to get that verse 
out of the Bible never have succeeded; and until you 
rend the Bible to pieces and burn it up you can never 
get it out; and even then it will stay. For example, it 
has been said that the word translated " eternal " does 
not mean eternal at all. It is a Greek word, aionios. 
That word is from the Greek word aion, which is the 
same as the English word eon or age ; and it has been 
said that this word means age-long, that it is a punish- 
ment that reaches through a definite period, but not 
necessarily through eternity. But the same word pre- 
cisely is applied to life in the other section of the verse : 
" but the righteous unto life eternal." Though the word 
is translated " everlasting " in the first part of the verse, 
and " eternal " in the last part of the verse, it is the same 
original word in both ; and if the word means age-long 
as to punishment, does it not mean age-long as to life ? 
And, if that be the case, then if there is no guarantee 
in this verse here for the everlasting punishment of the 
wicked, there is no guarantee here for the everlasting 
life of the righteous. 

But then notice that, while that word does mean age- 
long, so does the word "eternal." The word "eternal " 



252 ARTHUR T. PlERSOiN, D.D. 



is from the Latin word aetas, an age, which is the exact 
correspondent of the Greek word aion, an age; so that 
our word eternal means nothing but age-long. We have 
to take words to express ideas that are far beyond us. 
We have to take words that fall within the compass of 
our experience. We have never known a life that did 
not end, nor a life in which there was no succession of 
days and hours, and years and centuries; and so when 
we try to express the idea of a life tha't is not bounded 
by those limits, we take the longest period of which we 
know anything — an age. We take the most indefinite 
period of which we know anything — an age ; and we use 
that word to express the conception of eternity. Now, 
if you will stop a moment you will see the reason of this. 
Suppose the word that is here translated eternal meant 
year-long. A year is a definite cycle of time, three hun- 
dred and sixty-five days. It marks the period of the 
revolution of the earth round the sun in its orbit, and so 
a year means a definite period. But the word "age" 
means an indefinite length of time, and so we have no 
word that comes so near to eternity as the word age, for 
there are no limits to mark the beginning, no limits to 
mark the end, and that is the characteristic of eternity. 
It has no beginning, no end; and, because an age has 
no definite limits this side and no definite limits that side, 
it is the nearest word we have, coming from our experi- 
ence, to express eternity. And so the Greek having no 
other word, said " aionios " — age-long, and the Latin, 
having no other word, compounds one from the word 
"cetas," age, and we take our word eternal from the 
same Latin word "cetas." 

Then somebody else says, " This does not refer to 
duration at all, but refers to the quality or sphere of 
punishment and life. The temporal punishment is that 
which is administered here. Eternal punishment is that 



THE INEVITABLE ALTERNATIVE 253 



which is administered there." That might be all true 
enough, and no doubt is so far as it goes ; but how about 
the life? Does eternal life express only a different 
quality of life, and has it no reference to duration ? 
Well, then, we have no pledge of immortality beyond 
the grave. Somebody else says that this word refers, or 
this whole scene refers, not to the judgment of individuals 
but to the judgment of nations ; that it is nations that are 
drawn before the throne of God and are there judged, 
and that this refers, therefore, to the destruction of 
nations. I am inclined to think that this is, without 
doubt, the original fact as to this passage; and yet I 
cannot but believe that there is taught here, as w T ell as 
in many other passages of the Word of God, the awful 
doctrine which men will not believe, and which many 
ministers of Christ will not preach. If this were the only 
passage where this awful truth is taught we should gladlv 
pass it by as a doubtful passage ; but when it is confirmed 
by many others, what then shall we do? Let me read, 
you three passages of Scripture. First in the Book of 
Daniel, the 12th chapter, 1st and 2nd verses, especially 
the second verse: "And many of them which sleep in 
the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting 
life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." 
Now, you cannot get that out of Daniel ; and there is no 
judgment of nations in Daniel. Then look in the 5th 
chapter of the Gospel according to John. See our Lord's 
distinct teaching in this case : " Marvel not at this, for 
the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves 
shall hear His voice, and shall come forth, they that Rave 
done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that 
have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." 
There is no judgment of nations there. The words 
"eternity " and "everlasting " are not used, but there is 
a resurrection unto life and a resurrection unto damna- 



254 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



tion. Then in the 8th chapter of the same Gospel accord- 
ing to John, we have these words (verses 21, 23 and 24) : 
"Then said Jesus again unto them, I go My way, 
and ye shall seek Me, and shall die in your sins. 
Whither I go ye cannot come." There is no more 
solemn statement in the Word of God than that: "Ye 
shall die in your sins. Whither I go, ye cannot come." 
There is everlasting separation. "Ye are from beneath ; 
I am from above ; ye are of this world ; I am not of this 
world. I said therefore unto you that ye shall die in 
your sins, for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall 
die in your sins." There is plain teaching, and it is so 
plain that it needs not a word of explanation. "I obey 
a law of attraction upward, and you obey that of law of 
attraction downward. If ye believe not that I am He, 
ye shall die with the attraction downward, and you can- 
not come where I come, for you gravitate to one centre 
and I gravitate to another." 

So much, then, by way of clearing the rubbish out of 
our path. 

Now let us for a few moments solemnly consider this 
text. "These shall go away unto everlasting punish- 
ment, but the righteous unto life eternal." 

I shall treat this subject from a different point of view, 
possibly, from any to which you are accustomed. I am 
going to regard it, not in the light of Holy Scripture, not 
in the light of God's decrees, not in the light of God's 
distinct teachings in the revelation that He has given us 
in the gospel, but in the light of the revelation of common 
sense and reason, and conscience and memory, and 
observation and experience on the part of men. 

Now let us be perfectly honest in dealing with this 
profound and awe-inspiring subject. 

In the first place, there are radical differences in the 
character of men and women in this world* Nobody will 



THE INEVITABLE ALTERNATIVE 255 



dispute that. These radical differences of character are 
called " radical " because they reach from the root to the 
utmost branch. There is a radical difference between an 
apple tree and a pear tree, and a peach tree and a plum 
tree, between thorns and thistles, and olive trees and 
myrtle trees. We know a radical difference to exist 
between different men and different women. Marked 
distinctions of character appear on either side of us in 
the human family. Nobody will dispute that; so I shall 
not argue that. 

My second proposition is that men of different 
characters follow different kinds of conduct. A man's 
character determines his course. Whenever he is left 
free, all things being equal, a man's character will deter- 
mine his employment. One man will take to one form 
of employment, and another to another, when they are 
left free to choose. Certain circumstances will some- 
times compel a man to do a work that is distasteful to 
him, or constrains him to do a work that is not altogether 
agreeable to him. But if you let men have their own 
way their conduct will be determined by their character. 
The nature of their employment will be in sympathy 
with their tastes and their convictions, with their notions 
and their affections, and with their resolutions. And so 
will the character of a man's enjoyments be determined 
by the character of the man himself. There are some 
men that will take forms of pleasure to which I would 
myself feel not in the slightest drawn, or you either; and 
there are other things to which I should feel drawn in 
the way of enjoyment that would minister no pleasure 
to many of my fellow-men. My character determines 
my enjoyment whenever I am free to pursue my pleasure 
in my own way. 

Again, my character will determine my associations. 
"Birds of a feather flock together" is an old proverb t 



256 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



and it is emphatically true among men. If you let men 
and women have their own way, the like will go together. 
There will never be a union between like and unlike. 
So when the Apostles in primitive times were let loose 
from the presence of the council they went " to their own 
company " ; and that is what every man and woman will 
do if you let such alone. If you do not restrict by out- 
ward restraints, or limits, or laws, every man and woman 
will seek their own like in society. Now, employment, 
enjoyment, and association are thd three things that 
determine what we call the course of a man's life; and 
therefore I think that no one will dispute me when I say 
that character determines the course of life. 

My third proposition is that the character and the 
course of life make up the condition. When the Chinese 
proverb says that heaven is a good heart, and hell is a 
bad heart, the Chinese proverb is very nearly right. No 
set of conditions can produce happiness. No set of con- 
ditions can produce misery, apart from the condition of 
the character itself. If you will take a forlorn hovel in 
which there are wretchedness, and want, and woe to-day, 
and put a godly woman there — a woman of a sunny dis- 
position, a woman of industrious habits, a woman of 
economy and frugality, a woman who has the love of 
God and the love of man shed abroad in her own heart, 
whose very eyes carry the love of God in them, and 
whose face is lightened with the smile of heaven — put 
such a woman as that in the midst of such a hovel, and 
she will make the whole hovel full of sunlight. And 
you take a palace and put into it a queen that is corrupt, 
whose imaginations are vile, whose affections are malig- 
nant, whose whole disposition is hateful and repulsive, 
and there will be a shadow over the palace. You cannot 
make a man's condition radiant with gold or silver or 
precious stones. And you cannot keep out the light of 



THE INEVITABLE ALTERNATIVE 257 



joy and happiness by building a hovel with mud walls, 
even if there be neither windows nor doors. It is charac- 
ter that makes condition. In the long run, men and 
women are happy or miserable according to what they 
are, not according to what they have. Wealth never 
made yet a happy home. Poverty never made yet a 
miserable home. You must have sin if you want the 
worst of suffering, and you must have holiness and virtue 
if you want the highest enjoyment. Nobody will dispute 
this. 

I do not say that condition may not be somewhat 
affected by our surroundings, but I say that the heart of 
the man or woman is what settles after all the real con- 
dition in this life. 

My fourth proposition is this — that, whenever charac- 
ter is fixed beyond reformation, condition is settled 
beyond change. Here are two men that we may think 
of to illustrate this. One is passing eastward, and the 
other is passing westward. They are close togethe/ 
now. They could turn about and shake hands now. 
There are not twelve inches of space between them as 
they stand back to back. One begins to walk eastward, 
and continues to walk eastward. The other begins to 
walk westward, and continues to walk westward ; and so, 
every step, they get farther apart ; and if it were not that 
the earth was round, and by going eastward and west- 
ward they would come together on the other side even- 
tually — if this was a perpetual path towards the east 
without limit, and this a perpetual path towards the 
west without limit, and they should continue to go on 
in these divergent careers, they never would come to- 
gether. They would stand farther and farther apart 
every hour, every day, every year, every century, every 
millennium, through all the boundless succession of 
eternal cycles. 

S 



258 ARTHUR T. P1ERS0N, D.D. 



Character is every day getting more and more 
fixed in every man and every woman in this world. 
Why? Because your employments are getting to be 
habitual, because your enjoyments are getting to be 
habitual, because your associations are getting to be 
habitual, because the very notions that you have in your 
minds, and the affections that you have in your heart, 
and the resolutions that you cherish in your will, are 
getting to be as firmly fixed as a piece of wood is fixed 
when it is petrified, or as water is fixed when it is turned 
to ice. 

Now, I repeat, first, there are radical differences in 
the character. Second, these radical differences in 
character beget different courses of life. Third, these 
radical differences in character and differences in courses 
of life beget different conditions or states. And, fourth, 
if you get the character fixed, the condition is settled; 
and if a man cannot change his radical character he 
cannot change his radical condition. If he gets where 
he for ever hates holiness, he can never be a happy man. 
If he gets where he for ever loves holiness, he cannot 
be a wretched man. It is utterly out of the question. 
The love of holiness would make a heaven, and the love 
of sin would make a hell, if there were none already. 
Now, no one can dispute what I have said so far, and 
therefore you cannot dispute the next point, which is the 
last one — that there is no reason to believe that character 
will be changed beyond this world, if it is not changed 
in this world. 

Let us see what influences there are in this world that 
change men and women radically. I think they may 
be all brought under the following heads : first, the know- 
ledge of the truth ; second, the voice of conscience ; third, 
the voice of God ; fourth, the power of association. Those 
four things are the great causes that change men radi- 



THE INEVITABLE ALTERNATIVE 259 



cally. Sometimes a man has bedn ignorant, and he 
comes to a knowledge of the truth, and the truth is seen 
in a new light and seen in a new force, and has new 
effect upon him ; and the consequence is that his character 
undergoes a radical change. Or sometimes a man comes 
to listen to the voice of conscience, where, otherwise, he 
has been accustomed to dismiss it. He stops and 
hearkens to the remonstrance of his moral sense, which 
says, "This is wrong. Do not do it. This is right. 
Do that which you know to be right." And he begins 
to listen. He sees that his conscience is right. He sees 
that the course of sin which he has been following has 
been leading him into misery and wretchedness. He 
sees that the right which he ought to have followed 
would have led him into corresponding conditions of 
happiness and well-being ; and he begins to listen to his 
conscience; and conscience is a revolutionist. Con- 
science is a conspirator — not against God : it is a con- 
spirator against the devil ; and conscience has the power, 
if you will submit to it, to turn the empire of Satan 
upside down and put God on the throne where He 
belongs. 

Then the third way in which men are changed in this 
world is by the obvious interposition of God. For in- 
stance, here comes a providence that smites, a judgment 
that convinces, an earthquake, an awful flood, a light- 
ning stroke, and men begin to think that there is a God. 
They hear His voice in the thunder ; they feel the throb 
of His great indignant heart in the earthquake ; and they 
feel the rush of His awful wrath in devouring flames; 
and they begin to turn unto the Lord and seek after 
righteousness. Or, again, there is a power of associa- 
tion that changes them. Here, for instance, are a godly 
father and mother. They bring holy influences to bear 
upon a recreant son. The Bible is read; orayer is 



2 6o ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



offered; a holy example is set before the boy; and he 
comes by and by to feel the influence of that holy 
example. Perhaps he never goes astray from God from 
the beginning, because there has always been this re- 
straining and guiding influence round about him. Now, 
you will all confess with me that the four great causes 
which turn men are these : the knowledge of the truth, 
the voice of conscience within, the voice of God's judg- 
ment; or, it may be, His Holy Word, or it may be His 
Divine Spirit without, or the associations of life thaf 
bring us into new lines of activity, and teach us the power 
of new forms of enjoyment, or, possibly, restrain from 
evil and guide in paths of righteousness and holiness. 
Now, if you have not been changed by these things in 
this world, have you any reason to believe that you will 
be changed by them in the life to come ? 

I want to make a solemn statement regarding people 
who are not children of God, and I want to speak as a 
brother and a friend. If they have learned to resist the 
truth here, have you any reason to believe that they 
would not resist it there ? Have not they always had 
the voice of conscience? And if conscience does not 
lead men to God here, have you any reason to believe 
that it would lead them to God there? Is there going 
to be any tremendous power in the moral sense in eternity 
to change a character that it could not change here ? If 
the providence of God here, if the messages of the Gospel 
here, if the strivings of the Spirit here, have not affected 
their moral and spiritual character, have you any reason 
to believe that they will be affected there ? Is there any 
hint in the Word of God that the Holy Ghost is going 
to be in hell to urge sinners to repentance? Can you 
find a single passage in the Word of God that indicates 
that the work of the Spirit is to continue beyond the 



/ 



THE INEVITABLE ALTERNATIVE 261 



bounds of the present life ? If you can find it, I should 
like to see where it is, for I have never found it. 

There is one solemn passage in the Book of Revela- 
tion that looks as though the time were coming when 
character is going to become unchanging. "He that is 
unjust, let him be unjust still ; and he that is filthy, let 
him be filthy still ; and he that is holy, let him be holy 
still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still. 
And behold I come quickly to give every man according 
as his work shall be." If the tree falls it lies along the 
ground as it falls. It is never again erected. When a 
man falls at the throw of death, he lies as he falls. There 
is no hint in the Bible of a change of character beyond 
this world. 

Perhaps some of you think that punishment in the next 
world will reform a sinner. Did you ever know punish- 
ment to reform a sinner here? I never did. God deals 
very gently and tenderly with us here even in chastise- 
ment and in judgment, because He wants to move the 
world to righteousness by the interposition of His hand. 
And yet you will find that when God sweeps with tre- 
mendous judgment over the earth as with the besom of 
destruction, men in a few hours, or days, go right along 
in tKeir old courses of sin just as before, and there is 
nothing that is as speedily forgotten as the awful judg- 
ments of Almighty God. If you want to see in the 
Book of Revelation what God thinks about the power of 
punishment in the future state, read those awful words : 
"They gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed 
the God of heaven." Even while in the torment of their 
punishment, they gnawed their tongues like a madman 
in the intensest of suffering, they only blasphemed God. 

I once lived between two neighbours, and I want to 
tell you about these two men as an illustration of my 
theme. Here was my house : here was one on the right 



262 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



hand of me, and the other on the left of me ; an'd those 
two men, although they lived close by each btEer and 
close by me, were as far apart as the east is from the 
west. They had radical differences in character. The 
man here was an industrious man : the man there was a 
lazy man. The man here was a gentle and good-tem- 
pered man: the man there was an abusive man, He 
abused even his own wife. The man here was an in* 
telligent man and loved knowledge : the man there was 
an ignorant man and loved his ignorance. The man 
here had an aversion to strong drink, and evert to 
tobacco; that man there was for ever drinking, and for 
ever smoking and chewing. This man was bringing up 
his Child in the fear of God : that man would take his 
pipe out of his mouth and put it into the mouth of a 
little child eighteen months bid, and teach the child to 
suck the pipe and get the taste of the tobacco, and learn 
while a baby the vicious indulgence. That man on the 
Sabbath day went to church to worship God; this man 
on the Sabbath day went out into the farms about to 
train horses. This man was open to every suggestion 
of virtue and purity; that man shut his ears to every 
remonstrance against his body-and-soul-destroying 
vices. This man loved Christ; that man blasphemed 
Him. This man studied his Bible; that man never 
looked at a page of it. This man was daily on his knees 
in prayer ; that man never used the name of Christ except 
with curses and oaths. Radical differences of character. 
Not one solitary point in sympathy. And I saw these 
two men, during the time that I lived between them, get- 
ting farther and farther apart in character, farther and 
farther apart in course of life, farther and farther apart 
in tastes, and dispositions, and preferences, farther and 
farther apart in all that makes up the condition of a soul 
toward God and toward man, 



THE INEVITABLE ALTERNATIVE 263 



Now, answer me this question, you unbeliever, you 
wfio say that this text of Scripture is one that any man 
ought to be ashamed to preach to you, and who, perhaps, 
say that the Bible ought to be ashamed to have such a 
text in it : you who say that, whatever else is true, eternal 
punishment is not true : you who, perhaps, dare to blas- 
pheme and say that you would not have a God that was 
such a God. Let me hear you answer my question. 
Take these two neighbours of mine. I have no malice 
against either of them. I love the one, and I love the 
soul of the other, and I have sat down and talked with 
him about his own spiritual condition, and sought to lead 
him to a better life. I love both these men. I think I 
can honestly say that I would die for that neighbour, who 
is destroying body and soul, if my death would save 
him. But it is a perfectly patent fact that those two men 
are facing different ways, and that they are going dif- 
ferent ways, and that they are bound to go different 
ways. Now, answer me one question. If these men die 
and continue to go on different ways — if beyond this life 
there is nothing radically to change the character of that 
man, who is a vicious, idle, lazy, worthless, ignorant, 
unprincipled man, I would like to tell you what is likely 
to bring these men together in the hereafter-life, since 
nothing has ever brought them together in this life? 
If you put that other neighbour of mine over there in 
hell, He would start a prayer-meeting. If you put that 
neighbour of mine in heaven he would gather, if it were 
possible, someone else to him to help him blaspheme. 
Put Cain and Abel together. Could they live together? 
There is no use in disputing God. 

I firmly believe that, while we fight the doctrine of 
eternal punishment, that doctrine is laid not only in the 
Word of God, but in the basis of the human constitution. 
Character is radically different. Conduct follows 



264 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



character. Course of life is determined by character and 
conduct. Condition depends on character. If you get 
character where it cannot change, you get condition 
where it cannot change ; and therefore if before the throne 
of God men simply part to go different ways, as in this 
world, they will part to go different ways, and if they 
continue to go different ways for ever, that will settle 
eternally the condition of everlasting happiness on the 
one hand, and the condition of everlasting misery on the 
other hand. 

I have not referred to the divine side at all, because I 
wanted to call your attention to the human side. I have 
not dwelt on revelation, because I want to appeal to rea- 
son. I have not talked of supernatural law, because I 
wanted to appeal to natural law and to bring you back 
to ask yourselves this question : when I find the awful 
testimony of God, is not that testimony confirmed in the 
mouth of two or three awful witnesses — my reason on 
the one hand and my conscience on the other? 

In conclusion, I would indicate the only source of 
deliverance from the searching significance of this text. 
First of all, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, said these 
words. It gave Him no pleasure to say these words. 
They w r ere wrenched from Him by the awful necessity of 
being true to souls. There is salvation for you in the 
same blessed Christ that said, " These shall go away into 
everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life 
eternal." And the only salvation for you is in a radical 
change of character. "Except a man be born again he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." If you w T ill come to 
Christ for a new heart, if you will get your notions of 
things changed, and your affections changed, and your 
resolutions changed, if you will get new tastes, new 
spiritual tastes, a relish for something which you have 
hated, and a disrelish for something which you have 



THE INEVITABLE ALTERNATIVE 265 



loved, then you turn square round in your course. Your 
back has been to God, but your face shall be toward 
Him. Your face has been toward hell, but it shall hence- 
forth be toward heaven, and a radical change in your 
spiritual tastes shall generate a radical change in your 
condition, your course of life, your destiny; and so, as 
you turn about to God, you shall find that destiny has 
turned about for you — that hell is shut against you, and 
heaven is open for you. 



XV 



Expiation and Consecration 



" We thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all 
dead " [all died], " and that He died for all, that they which 
live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him 
which died for them, and rose again." — 2 Corinthians v. 



HE Word of God is full of little gospels or brief 



presentations of the great leading truths of 



X redemption in a very few words. These two 
verses form one of the most remarkable of these brief 
statements which we may call epitomes of gospel truth. 
No one can read these two verses without being struck at 
once with the great prominence that is here given to 
what is known as substitutionary sacrifice. Here, in a 
very brief compass, we have three times the expression 
used " died for." " We thus judge, that if One died for 
all," then again " that He died for all," and then again 
" Who died for them." Such repetition as this certainly 
means emphasis. It holds up Jesus Christ to us in the 
compass of these two verses three times, as a substitute 
for sinners, and not only so, but as dying as such a 
substitute. 

Then, again, I would have you notice the difference in 
the way in which this truth is put in the two conspicuous 
members of this sentence. In the first case He is repre- 
sented as dying for all, and we are represented as dying 
in Him. Not a word is said about resurrection ; not a 



14 and 15. 




EXPIATION AND CONSECRATION 267 



word is said about life again from the dead. But in the 
latter portion of this statement we seem almost to lose 
sight of the death feature altogether in the feature of life. 
" And that He died for all, that they which live should 
not henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him which 
died for them and rose again." 

Now the question arises at once before we can go any 
farther into the depth of the subject, Why did the 
apostle, under the guidance of the Spirit, so construct 
this statement of truth as to leave out of the first part of 
it entirely all reference to Christ's resurrection or the life 
of believers in Him, and in the second part to emphasize 
particularly His resurrection and the life of the believer 
in Him ? It only shows us how the whole Word of God 
is intimately bound together, and how one part of 
Scripture helps to illuminate and illustrate another. 
There are some people who never look into the Old 
Testament. They feel as though the Old Testament 
belonged to a past dispensation ; but the New Testament, 
which rings with the sound of grace, they delight in, 
though how you are ever going to understand the New 
Testament if you do not understand the Old is a mystery 
to me, for if it be true, as it is, that the New Testament 
is latent in the Old — lies there like a hidden germ — it is 
also true that the Old Testament is patent in the New — 
lies on the surface. 

You cannot understand a passage like this without 
understanding Leviticus, that much-disputed book that 
some people would make us believe, if they could, 
hardly belongs at all among the inspired portions of 
the Word of God. In the opening chapters of Leviticus 
you have the great law of sacrifice and offerings. I 
cannot go now into detail with regard to it, but carefully 
notice and keep always in mind the distinction between 
the sin offering and the trespass offering which were, 



268 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



properly speaking, sacrifices, and the burnt offering 
and the thank offering which were more especially 
designated as offerings. The great difference between 
these two classes lies in this — that the first ones 
mentioned, the sin offering and the trespass offering, 
were regarded as so identified with sin that they repre- 
sented something that was abhorrent in the eyes of God 
and upon which God looked, as it were, with a look of 
indignation. The victims that represented the sin 
offering and the trespass offering were taken without the 
camp. They were regarded as unclean, and the word 
which is applied to them, which is translated " burn," 
means to burn to ashes. The idea is that the victim was 
wholly consumed, nothing left of it but ashes, and even 
the ashes represented that which was unclean. But in the 
whole burnt offering where the victim was presented 
to God as an emblem and symbol of the consecra- 
tion of the offerer, the word " burn " which is applied to 
it is a different Hebrew word, and it means to ascend in 
flame ; and there is a beautiful suggestion about this — 
that, while God's indignation rested on the sin offering 
as the representation of sin, and the offering went to 
ashes, with no suggestion of an ascending sacrifice, no 
sweet savour going up to God but an unpleasant scent, 
as it were, in His nostrils, in the burnt offering there is 
no suggestion whatever of being turned to ashes merely. 
The offering is represented as going up in the flame of 
fire, and being accepted in the sense of a sweet savour to 
God. Now you see that while, in the first class of 
offerings mentioned, there is no suggestion of a life that 
comes out of death, in the second there is a suggestion of 
life that comes out of death. While the first class of 
offerings mentioned makes no suggestion of resurrection, 
you cannot get rid of the idea of resurrection when you 
think of the burnt sacrifice, the whole burnt offering. 



EXPIATION AND CONSECRATION 269 



I mention this now because it is a help in the under- 
standing of a great many passages of Scripture outside of 
Leviticus ; and it is impossible, in my judgment, to under- 
stand the passage now before us if we do no grasp this 
conception ; and because I want it to be in your mind all 
the way through let me repeat once more the substance 
of it. The sin offering and trespass offering regarded as 
unclean went to ashes, and the word " burnt " signifies 
nothing more than to burn them, to burn them to ashes. 
But the burnt offering was regarded as a symbol of the 
accepted service of a believing child of God ; and, there- 
fore, though it was consumed on the altar, the word 
" burnt " means to ascend in flame as a sweet savour, 
and so suggests the idea that out of the death represented 
in the burnt offering there comes a life of service to God, 
a resurrection out of ashes. 

Now, if if we understand that the first statement in 
this text, " He died for all," represents Christ as the sin 
offering and the trespass offering, and the second state- 
ment, " He died for all," represents Him as the burnt 
offering, we can readily understand why, in the first 
statement, no reference is made to life, and why, in the 
second part of the statement, the emphasis is upon " rose 
again " and living unto God. 

This is so important that I shall dwell upon it for a few 
moments before passing to the practical thoughts which 
are here suggested. 

There are two things which Jesus Christ has done for 
the believer. The first is that He has been " made sin 
for us though He knew no sin " ; and the second is that 
in Him we are made the righteousness of God. 

The first is expiation, the second is consecration. The 
first is putting away penalty ; the second is putting away 
the power of sin, and finally the presence of sin. The 
first is getting iniquity out of our hearts, and the second 



270 ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 

is preparing us to take an active part in the service of 
our glorified Lord. 

He died for us all, and " we thus judge, that if One died 
for all, then all died." That is to say, if Christ was your 
representative and mine, if He bore up our sins in His 
own body on the Cross — not His own sins, for He had 
none to atone for, but the weight of a world's sin — then 
when He died as the sin offering and the trespass offering 
your sin and my sin was consumed. The body of sin 
that had held us in dominion, in bondage, was turned to 
ashes. Henceforth there is no longer penalty of the law 
that overhangs us, for the penalty was expiated. Hence- 
forth there is no longer the tyranny of sin to be exercised 
in us, for the arms of sin have been broken, and the very 
body of sin has been burnt to ashes. There is no longer 
the curse of sin on us, for that curse without the camp 
has been expiated, and the wrath of God has been 
endured for our sins. 

But if Jesus Christ presented Himself as a willing 
sacrifice to God as the type of the very believers He had 
redeemed, if on the cross there hung not only an offering 
for sin but a representation of saved believers, then there 
must come out of His grave a risen Christ, and in Him 
we emerge out of our graves, rising to newness of life. 
Now, a child can understand that. It is perfectly simple 
and perfectly intelligible, and the whole heart of the 
gospel is right here. 

Now that I have made this brief word of explanation 
about this text, our thoughts will naturally be drawn now 
for a few moments to speak, first, of our death, and 
second, of our life. 

First, our death. It is a threefold death, and the 
life is a threefold life. It is a death, first of all, 
unto sin ; second, a death unto the world ; and third, 
a death unto self. It is, first, a life in the Spirit ; 



EXPIATION AND CONSECRATION 271 



second, a life unto God, and, third, a life for man. 
Just a few words about each of these departments of 
thought. 

I. 

First, a death unto sin. He died for all, and in Him 
all died. Not only penalty put away, but power put 
away too, for there is no perfect salvation that delivers 
from penalty only. A perfect salvation must deliver us 
from the dominion of sin also. The tyrant must be burnt 
to ashes so that he can no longer sway his sceptre over 
you and me. That is the force of what the Apostle Paul 
says in this sixth chapter of Romans. He says : " He 
that is dead is freed from sin." " Likewise reckon ye 
also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin." That is, in 
Christ you judicially die. Now, be actually dead even 
as you are judicially dead. When Jesus Christ died on 
the cross, in God's eyes every believer that trusts in Him 
also died. Now, inasmuch as God, as your judge, 
reckons you to be dead, count yourselves to be dead, 
and, therefore, do not reckon on a life of sin. If you are 
a dead man how are you going to act ? If you are a 
dead man how can your former tyrant expect to find in 
you a living servant ? Now, let the devil understand 
this : " I am a dead man henceforth ; therefore thou hast 
no claim over me for obedience. Sin is dead to me and 
I am dead to sin, and as God counts me dead I will 
count myself dead." You are judicially dead, then be dead. 

Do you think that this is strange language ? Not 
at all. Perfectly apprehensible and perfectly compre- 
hensible. God accounts you as no longer a sinner, 
because Christ died for you. He counts you a saint. 
Now, as in the book of God's remembrance your sins 
have been blotted out, and they are no longer represented 
against you, inasmuch as Jesus Christ, in breaking the 
power of the devil has broken his sceptre so that you are 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



no longer in terror of it, you must think of yourself as a 
dead man so far as sin is concerned, and as, therefore, no 
longer finding in yourself the possibility of yielding 
service to him who is dead to you and to whom you are 
dead — the devil. In other words, I must regard myself as 
henceforth set apart unto God, the old man dead and no 
longer to be thought of, no longer to be reckoned on, no 
longer to have a place made for him in the economy of 
my life. I am to think of him as a dead tyrant who can 
no longer exercise power over me, and before whom I 
am no longer to bow. And to think of sin as dead, and 
to think of myself as dead to sin and only alive unto God 
through Jesus Christ my Lord, turns my thoughts into 
the new channel of service and makes the whole life to be 
treated as a past life, renounced and denounced and for 
ever put away. 

In the second place, we are to die unto the world. 
There is a very remarkable expression used by the 
Apostle Paul in the 6th chapter of the Epistle to 
the Galatians : " God forbid that I should glory save in 
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is 
crucified unto me and I unto to the world." It is 
the double crucifixion that I call attention to — that 
in Jesus Christ the world is crucified to me and I am 
crucified unto the world. I am on the cross and the 
world is beholding. Crucifixion was a painful and 
ignominious death. It was mainly a death to which 
slaves and traitors and conspirators were subject. 
" Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree " was the old 
proverb. They did not crucify a Roman general if they 
wanted to put him to death. Nobody would have thought 
of crucifying Caesar. Some method of taking away such 
distinguished men as they were must be less ignominious 
than crucifixion. But when they wanted to make a slave 
and a malefactor of Christ and hold Him to derision, they 



EXPIATION AND CONSECRATION 



hung Him by hands and by feet with nails to the cross. 
The cross was connected with shame. To be crucified 
unto the world means to be made hateful and to be a 
derision to the world. And to have the world crucified 
to me implies that the world becomes an object of hatred 
and derision to me. And there is this double death. 
The world is dead to me, and I am dead to the world. 
We are mutually made detestable and abhorrent to each 
other. The world is crucified to me when I no longer 
can see attractions in it. The things I used to love I no 
longer love. The pleasures I used to follow have lost 
their charm. The treasures I used to seek to amass 
have been resigned for the treasure that has been laid 
up in heaven where moth nor dust corrupts not and 
thieves do not break in and steal. The old things are 
passed away, and all things have become new. New 
tastes have been developed so that the old dainties now 
are sickening to me, and the things I once revolted from 
are my meat and drink. So the world has been put on 
the cross and nailed there, and I look at it and deride it, 
and I hate it and I abhor it, and I wonder that it ever 
had any charms for me, the ugly thing that crucified 
my Lord, and that I have now hung on His cross as an 
object of my sneers and my hatred. And I am crucified 
to the world because I am a new man in Christ Jesus, 
and not after the worldly pattern. The world cannot 
find in me the charm it once found, or the attractions it 
once found, or the sympathy it once found, or the service 
it once found. I do not now yield myself to the world, 
and the world hates me because I am not of the world. 
The world loves its own, but the world crucifies those 
that are not its own ; and if I am no longer the world's, it 
has nailed me to the cross as a malefactor, and it passes 
by and wags its head in hateful and malicious derision. 
Does that description correspond to you ? I think 

X 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



I have known a great many nominal disciples 
that the world did not seem to hate particularly, 
and that did not seem to hate the world particularly. 
I think there might be some who called them- 
selves Christians, who might rather say, if they told 
the truth, " The world is courted by me, and I am 
courted by the world. We walk up and down arm-in- 
arm, like friends, and we have a good time in each other's 
society." Not so Paul. "God forbid that I should 
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by 
whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the 
world." And he says in that same chapter, " Therefore 
if any man be in Christ he is a new creation. Old things 
are passed away ; all things are become new." If you 
can say the one thing with regard to yourself, you surely 
can say the other, and if you cannot say the one you 
cannot say the other. 

In the third place, we die to self. That is the hardest 
death of all and the last death of all. You think that 
you have killed sin, but you find that self lives nine lives 
if it does not live ninety ; and when you think that you 
have struck a fatal blow at self it comes up again in 
another form. For instance, you are a very proud man, 
and you do all you can to humble yourself, or, if you 
would use the correct expression, humiliate yourself, for it 
is very much easier to humiliate yourself than it is to 
humble yourself. When Lyman Beecher was coming 
home from a service at which his son had preached in his 
own pulpit, the son, walking along with his father, said, 
" Father, I made a miserable failure this morning. I 
am very much humbled." " Oh, fudge, fudge," said Dr. 
Beecher, " you are only humiliated." The discrimina- 
tion was a true discrimination. To be humble means to 
become humble. To be humiliated means only to get 
down in prostration. And many a man is more proud 



EXPIATION AND CONSECRATION 275 



in his prostration while he is humiliating himself than he 
was before. He thinks, " Why, what great things I am 
doing to make myself humble." Yes, self keeps coming 
up all the time. You are proud ; you try to become 
humble ; and then you become proud of your humility. 
You were selfish and you try to become unselfish, and 
now you become selfishly unselfish. That is to say, the 
very things that you do in an apparently unselfish spirit 
you have a selfish motive in doing, just as a great many 
people will give a man money for the sake of reputation. 
Why, I can remember when people used to go round 
begging money for benevolent charities of different sorts, 
and they would tell you, " Now, if you give £20 we will 
put your name on a published list of donors at the end, 
and if you will give the largest sum of all your name will 
stand at the head of the list of donors. That is "Be 
unselfish, and you will get a selfish reward." There 
are thousands of forms of selfishness. You appear to 
put it down, and it rises up again, and it rises up stronger 
for the very apparent humiliation it has undergone ; and 
so, down beneath all our apparent sacrifice, down beneath 
all our apparent sanctification, there lies this last element, 
the most difficult of all to reach, and the most difficult of 
all to approach — self, love of self, self-aggrandisement, 
self-advancement, self-glorying, self-seeking, self in some 
one of its myriad forms. All your sins you may cut 
away, apparently, as you cut away the branches from a 
tree, but as long as the love of self is left it is like a root 
out of which, after you have cut the branches off, a 
thousand branches may spring to take the place of what 
you cut off. And so the Apostle Paul here says, speaking 
by the Spirit, that " Christ died for all, that we who live 
should not henceforth live unto ourselves." The difference 
between the worldly man and the disciple is that the one 
lives to himself and the other lives unto God. 



276 Arthur t. pierson, d.d. 



ii. 

Finally, let us notice the other part of the subject — 
our life. We are dead to sin, dead to the world, dead to 
self, if we are truly Christ's. But how about your three- 
fold life ? 

In the first place, it is to be a life by the Spirit and in 
the Spirit. The Spirit of God is a new element in which 
we are to live. You know there is what is called a 
metamorphosis in insect life. A great change or trans- 
formation takes place. For instance, you go round in 
the summer season, and you will see a caterpillar living 
on the surface of a leaf or on the grass, the sward, 
picking up refuse matter, decayed matter, or sucking the 
juices of leaves. By and by that caterpillar takes up a 
position on a tree or on the bark of a tree, or perhaps 
wraps itself in a leaf and weaves about itself a curious 
envelope known as a cocoon, He abides there in an 
absolutely dormant condition, apparently lifeless, for a 
certain time, and then some day you will hear a sound on 
the top of this cocoon — something picking away at it, 
trying to force its way out, and, if you notice carefully, 
there emerges from this envelope a winged moth or 
butterfly. It stands on the top of the cocoon, and 
spreads its wings perhaps six or seven inches across. 
Now, henceforth it is going to live an entirely different 
life. It used to crawl. Now it is going to fly. It used 
to live on decayed matter. Now it is going to live on 
honey. It used to drag its length along on the ground. 
Now it is going to wing its way in the sunshine and the 
air. It has got a new element and is living a new life* 
It is transformed. Now, a disciple of Jesus Christ used to 
be a caterpillar. He is going to be a butterfly. He used to 
live down on the earth ; now he is going to live in the 
sunshine and live altogether in the air. He used to live 



EXPIATION AND CONSECRATION 277 



on old decayed matter ; now he is going to live on honey. 
New life in the Spirit, new tastes, new faculties, new 
powers, new privileges, new appetites, and new affinities. 
The old things are left below. The new things are from 
above. And, just as that butterfly is going to have in 
himself the air of heaven, and going to move in the air, 
this disciple is going to have now the Spirit of God in 
him, and he is going to move in the Spirit. The Holy 
Spirit is going to be his element henceforth. He is going 
to live in the Spirit. He is going to find the Spirit the 
very means by which he floats and moves and wings his 
way Godward, and the very power by which he goes 
from blossom to blossom of the world and gets the sweets 
of the nectarine. 

Now, in the second place, we are to live unto God ; 
that is, as the Spirit of God in us becomes the source of 
life, God becomes the object of life. We have got an eye 
on another centre now, and we are moving round another 
centre. There are some people that try to live very 
intimately in fellowship with God, and other people call 
them eccentric. A blessed thing to be called eccentric if 
it is because you differ from the world round about you 
and even worldly Christians. It is a very easy and 
common and cheap way of sneering at devoted saints to 
say that they are very peculiar. Well, God means to 
have a " peculiar people." A pity that more of us are 
not peculiar. " Oh, but then they are unpractical." 
Well, a blessed thing to be unpractical if that means that 
I cannot conform myself to the practice of a great many 
nominal disciples. " Oh, well it is theoretical." A blessed 
thing to be theoretical if the theory is found in the Word 
of God, and under the teaching of the Spirit, and if I 
reach after a nobler life. " Oh, but then he is an ideal 
Christian." I wish that there were a great many more 
that have the divine ideal before them trying to reach up 



278 ARTHUR X. PIERSON, D.D. 



towards it. " Well, he is trying to be perfect." Would to 
God that you all would. There is no danger of your ever 
being perfect here. But it is a blessed thing to put 
perfection before you and strive towards the absolute 
sinlessness of a holy life. 

We may sneer as we please at those who live in the 
fellowship of God day by day, and who have lost their 
hold upon this world because they have got a hold on 
God. Oh, that is the most precious life to lead, and, as 
I said before, would to God a great many more were living 
that same life. I have used the word " eccentric." It 
means out of centre. A mechanic will understand that 
where, in a piece of machinery, most of the parts seem to 
move and do move round a single centre, as though they 
were all poised on one pivot, here is a portion of the 
machinery that is out of the centre and has another pivot 
of its own. Now, Keith Falconer, that noble young man 
who died in Arabia in starting a mission among the 
Mahommedans, said, " Let people call you eccentric. 
Eccentric means nothing more than out of centre, and if 
you have got a new centre in God of course you are out 
of the old centre of the world. Let the world's machinery 
move round the old centre. You have begun to move by 
that eccentric movement about quite another pivot than 
that around which the world moves." Yes, let us live 
unto God. Put Him before us, set Him in the front of 
our being, God first in everything, God always first in 
everything, God cheerfully first in everything. That is 
what makes us stalwart and mighty Christians. 

My third remark is that we must live for man. That 
is to say, here is the sphere of service. We are in the 
world to do the world good. We are in the Church to do 
the Church good. We are among the human family to be 
a blessing to the human family. And the man who has 
got the Spirit of God in him and moves in that Spirit is 



EXPIATION AND CONSECRATION 279 



in a new element. A man that has got that before him, 
and who lives unto God, is the man that is prepared to live 
for humanity in the very largest and best sense. I like 
that expression, " for humanity." A man does not under- 
stand what service is as long as he allows discriminations 
to be between man and man. Ben Jonson, on one 
occasion, received a present of a crown piece (five 
shillings) from King James. He said to the person that 
brought it to him, " King James sends Ben Jonson, the 
poet, five shillings, because the poor poet lives in an alley, 
and the king lives in a palace. Go back and tell the king 
that his soul lives in an alley." There are a great many 
people who live in palaces, but whose souls live in alleys, 
and there are a great many people living in alleys, but 
whose souls live in the palace of the King. 

Now, I tell you, that you can never be largely used for 
service in the kingdom of God till you get these notions 
of aristocracy out of you — until you learn not to call any 
man common or unclean — until you learn to think of 
souls as immortal souls, and the very lowest of them all 
down in the mire of this world, like a diamond in the 
filth, worth Christ's stooping down from heaven to pluck 
up the diamond out of the mud. It is for man you 
want to live and not for rich people, not for cultured 
people, not for people in high positions, not for 
kings on thrones. You want to have such a love 
for man as man that the beggar in his hut or hovel 
is just as precious to you as the king on his throne 
or the prince in his palace. 

And so we are not to live unto ourselves but 
unto God, living for the whole race of man. The 
Hottentot, the lowest possible specimen of humanity, 
ought to attract the child of God more, if possi- 
ble, than the highest specimen. Why ? Because 
it is the lowest specimen of humanity that needs 



2 8o ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 



lifting the most and that is in most danger because in 
most degradation, and the love of God goes out to those 
that need it most, and the love that is like God's goes 
out to those that need it most. Elizabeth Fry, who 
made herself famous in London by her interposition for 
degraded women in Newgate, and who went, refined 
woman as she was, and put herself in the midst of filth 
and misery, and temptation, and who taught these 
women, and established schools, and reformed the whole 
prison discipline as well as the whole prison manners — 
Elizabeth Fry left it on record as the result of her whole 
life- work : " Never since I was seventeen years old have 
I ever woke up night or day without asking first of all 
this question : ' How can I, in the time before me, more 
perfectly serve my Master and uplift the fallen ? ' " 

If every one of us would ask that question with every 
waking hour, with every new morning, what glorious 
triumphs might be achieved by some of us who have 
never known service hitherto. When Jerome of Prague 
was in the midst of the fires of martyrdom he was heard 
to say, as he lifted up his face and looked in the heaven 
so soon to receive him, " My soul in flames I offer up, O 
Christ, to Thee." And Miss Willard, on her birthday, 
the leader of the great temperance host of women in 
America, and one of the noblest women that American 
civilisation ever produced, wrote solemnly in her diary : 
" This day I undertake, in the strength of the Holy 
Ghost, to realize what it means to lay my body, soul, 
and spirit on God's altar, a living sacrifice unto Him." 



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